












































































































f 




“Ill a moment I spied him hurrying toward me with 
the accustomed smile on his ruddy face.” 


adtcotures @f 

A TORDRRF00T 


s* " 

H. H. SAUBER. 


\ s 



Published for the Author 
by 

THE WHITAKER & RAY COMPANY 

(INCORPORATE!” * 

San Francisco, Cal. 

1899 


*« 


> > 
> ) > 


> i > 



Copyright 1899 
by 

H. H. SAUBER. 


TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 


FIRST COPY, 




f ocf 1899 






Dedicator 0 


To the memory o f my dear brother 

George, 

my best and truest friend. 



CONTENTS. 


Page 


Old Corkscrew 9 

The Bronco 37 

The Trail 55 

The Night Guard 79 

Mill Creeks 107 


A Midnight Mystery 


133 








OLD CORKSCREW 



ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


PART I. 

OLD CORKSCREW. 

Mills Ferry, Ohio, Jan. 4, 18 — . 
Dear Cousin Tom: 

You will doubtless ope wide your eyes with 
wonder upon catching sight of this epistle. Yet 
it has been hut five years (including one leap year, 
which, for aught I know, may have swept you into 
the matrimonial vortex, heaven knowing — to- 
gether with your humble servant — that you 
haven’t gallantry enough to propose to any girl 
alive nor tact enough to escape should one propose 
to you) since your last feeble and undergrown letter 
reached me. How are you, old fellow, and with 
what fervor has the wind of prosperity fanned your 
cheek? I learned though your uncle’s folks 
(9) 


10 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


that you are still incumbered by this mortal coil, 
had I not known from hard experience that the 
devil himself couldn’t kill you — tough, twisted 
knot of humanity that you are! 

I feel tempted to regale you with a detailed his- 
tory of my career since last we crossed palms and 
you started for the land of gold and clodhoppers, 
but change my mind upon reflecting that you will 
toss my letter into the fire before you’ve read one- 
half of it, unless I come speedily to business. 
Don’t start at that word, and then express your 
astonishment in choice anti-Sunday-school lan- 
guage, for I am actually in earnest. In brief, here 
is my tale. 

Six years ago you started for California, at which 
time, if my memory speaks the truth, you were 
some three weeks my senior — feel as though I’ve 
outgrown you in that respect since. I clerked for 
a couple of years in the store, studied a year at 
home, and then entered college and settled down — 
leaving Dad in the mean time pretty well occupied 
in settling up. My standing was not so bad, my 
health was first-rate, and as a soph. I captured 
several medals on the two hundred-yard dash, run- 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


11 


ning broad-jump, etc., and won my oar. With my 
junior year came a change. College work pressed 
me like the devil; athletics tied up in a double bow- 
knot, owing to a wholesale kick among a few sore- 
heads, and before two months had fled, I found 
myself burning the midnight oil with a vengeance, 
feeling weak as a rag and weighing ten pounds 
under my regular 170. I never was much on the 
fight unless I had a bone to fight for, and now that 
all incentive for gym. work or track exercise had 
disappeared, I neglected the whole game, and, as 
a consequence, my bookwork came harder and 
harder, until finally it kept me grinding like a serf 
to keep in my class. You can guess the rest. By 
spring I was a wreck, and barely succeeded in 
dragging out with a “section C,” weighed but a 
ragged 155, and felt about as sprightly as a wooden 
horse. To make uncertainty doubly uncertain, as 
far as college work went, I succeeded, during the 
early summer, in fastening on a measly, guinea- 
pig sort of a cough which mightily disturbed my 
inner economy, and rendered me a public nuisance. 
That cooked my senior goose. My class moved on 
and left me astern. Since then Fve clung to the 


12 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


farm, staying as much as possible in the open air, 
and gradually getting back into form. Winter 
weather cuts me to the quick, and after receiving 
tons of advice bidding me go to Florida, to Texas, 
to the South Seas, or the Lord knows where, I 
have finally decided to honor California with my 
presence, providing I can find an opening there, 
with a chance to invest a few shekels with a pros- 
pect of getting enough of them back to bury me 
if I go under, or to bring me home if I recuperate. 

You now have the object of my letter. What 
are the chances to get into some business in your 
section, that will keep me much in the open air? 
I have a slim thousand left from grandfather’s es- 
tate to sink in the venture. Dad says that won’t 
be enough to buy a man a hat out in your country, 
but I tell him I’ll go bareheaded and take chances 
on a thousand beating a pair of bare paws even in 
California. 

I’ll bore you no further. I’m in earnest, Tom, 
so advise me, to the best of your limited ability, 
and believe me as ever, 

Yours affectionately, 


Fred. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


13 


Pettit’s Ranch, Cal., Jan. 26, 18 — . 

Dear Fritz: 

Your letter came to hand ten days ago. I’m 
sorry to hear that you’re off yonr feed, bnt glad 
to learn that yon are going to give that damned 
college the go-by for a while. Come to California 
and I’ll give yon a course of training that will beat 
your rowing and sprinting twice over when it 
comes to putting fat on your ribs. 

I have a proposition for you. Join me this 
spring and I’ll go you cahoots on the cattle busi- 
ness. That is the layout that ought to hit you 
about center. I’ve got six hundred dollars salted 
down and a year’s wages coming, besides a good 
saddle-horse and outfit. Old Pettit — my boss at 
present — says that a fellow can get good stock cat- 
tle for thirty or thirty-five dollars a head, by going 
to the small ranchers on the Sacramento. A de- 
cent bronco will cost you one hundred and fifty 
and an outfit fifty or sixty more. 

Come ahead, get your property, and I’ll give Old 
Corkscrew the cold shoulder and we’ll hang up on 
our own hook. I can get slathers of summer feed 
and plenty of winter range by herding back in the 


14 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


foothills. Cattle are good property here since the 
arrival of the railroad. 

Reply soon and let me know your play. 

Your cousin, 

Tom. 

Better come. 

* * * 

One nasty, wet morning in early March, while a 
chilling wind vied with the slush underfoot in 
making life miserable, I stepped from a train onto 
the smoke-begrimed platform at Marysville, at 
which place the California & Oregon line was lying 
dormant during the wet season, and, dragging my 
car-shattered frame together, glanced at the crowd 
of gum-coated Californians* who gaped indolently 
at the motley array of human cattle being dis- 
charged from the weather-beaten coaches, or stared 
with half-begotten looks of admiration at the 
wheezing, sneezing, old engine. I looked eagerly 
about for my cousin Tom, the jolly, romping, 
curly-haired chum of my early days, and, in a mo- 
ment, spied him hurrying toward me, with the 
accustomed smile on his ruddy face. 

“Hello, Fritz!” 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


15 


“Hello, Tom!” 

A hearty clasp of his broad palm, and then: 

“God! Fritz, you’re more lantern-jawed than 
ever!” 

The very same laughing, swearing boy as of yore. 
My eye ran him over, keen for a glance at the old 
Tom, dreading to find a change. Yet changes 
there were. Fully two inches added to the old- 
time height, making now a good five feet seven. 
Less of rotundity, less of rosiness to the cheek, 
which, with the cleft chin, seemed threatened by a 
scraggly straw-colored heard. The shoulders, al- 
ways heavy, were now massive, rounded by great 
welts of corded, knotted muscle, the large, rough 
hands, larger and rougher, and the sturdy legs per- 
ceptibly more bowed than when last they carried 
my cousin on some mad-cap prank over Ohio soil. 
The dancing blue eye and laughing mouth were 
the same, however, betokening, I knew full well, 
the same kind, generous, unselfish heart toward 
which I warmed. 

“What’s your weight?” I asked, with boyish 
eagerness, as with grip in either hand, he elbowed 
his way irresistibly toward the baggage-room. 


16 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


“Make a guess!” 

“Hundred and seventy?” 

“Hope! Missed her twenty pounds” 

“What! Only a hundred and fifty? You weighed 
that when you left home.” 

“The twenty pounds is tother way.” 

“You don’t mean to say — •” 

“Yes, I do. Hundred and ninety now, in work 
harness.” 

“Great guns! A regular moose!” I cried, filled 
with surprise and admiration. “Have you ever 
been sick?” 

“Hot a day.” 

“Sawed off four inches short, too. Why, I am 
six feet in my socks and have never yet beat one 
hundred and seventy.” 

“Oh, you’re only a kid!” laughed Tom, clutching 
me in the ribs > then seizing my trunk check he 
pressed it upon the over-wrought baggage-master 
with an irresist^le: 

“Have to get this trunk at once, partner, or the 
stage will leave us.” Turning to me he added: 
“I’ll take some of the college conceit out of you 
when I get you on the ranch!” 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


17 


Before I could toss back a counter-boast, Tom 
had laid hands upon my trunk, which tipped the 
scales at two hundred and twenty pounds, whirled 
it upon his immense shoulder, and crying: “Come 
on !” made his way toward the door and across the 
slippery platform, while baggage-man, porter, and 
lounger stood with mouth agape in astonishment, 
watching the performance. 

A lumbering stage coach, whose six, skittish- 
looking horses snorted and plunged nervously at 
sight of Tom and the Saratoga, stood at the north- 
ern end of the platform, a seedy-looking individual 
in long rubber coat and slouched hat seated upon 
the high front seat. 

“You the gents for Chico? Jes’ in time. Nick! 
Help with that there trunk. Whoa! Damme! 
Didn't yeh ever see a trunk before?” with a vicious 
jerk on a leader’s rein. “Stow your turkey in 
under the middle seat, young feller, ’nd make that 
damn nigger len’ a hand! I has to hold these here 
broncos or they’ll spill the whole God damn load.” 

I obeyed this order, for such it appeared to be, 
and shoved my grip under the seat, the driver hav- 
ing betrayed to my tenderfoot eyes that this con- 


18 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


stituted the turkey mentioned, and had just fin- 
ished when a fat gentleman with shining black 
suit, unprotected from the drizzling rain, flashing, 
red scarf, and a decidedly quizzical cast of coun- 
tenance limped out from the depot and approached 
the coach. He paused when on the very edge of 
the platform, spread his legs far apart (one being 
some two inches shorter than its fellow, this per- 
formance gave him a very grotesque poise), jerked 
his round hat close down over his eyes, thrust his 
short arms akimbo, and cast upon me a cold, 
dark frown. At that instant Tom came around 
from the boot, and I detected a smile creep over 
his face at sight of my unsymmetrical observer. 
“That’s old Pettit!” he chuckled under his breath, 
then lifting his voice he introduced us: 

“Mr. Pettit, my cousin, Mr. Thurman.” 

“Pleased to meet you!” I began civilly, extend- 
ing my hand. But to my utter amazement the 
other paid not the slightest attention to this token 
of civility, but, instead, stared hard at me for an 
awkward moment and then blurted out in a harsh 


voice: 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


19 


“It'll take several coats of 'dobe to make a man 
of you , my duck!" and, thrusting his hands deep 
down in his coat pockets, turned and ambled over 
to where the darky, Nick, and two porters were 
wrestling with a clumsy crate. 

“Damned old crank!" half-growled, half -laughed 
my cousin, who, for some reason, which was en- 
tirely beyond my ken, appeared highly amused at 
the foregoing proceedings. 

“He'll repent it or answer me!" I cried indig- 
nantly, for my temper was never of the coolest, and 
I felt that, according to my code, I had been 
grossly insulted. 

“Let him alone!" soothed Tom, struggling hard 
to suppress an uproarious burst of merriment. “He 
merely wanted to surprise you a little, and prob- 
ably the next you know he'll be making you his 
confident and tell you some secrets the balance of 
his acquaintance had never known." 

“Ah! I begin to see! Somewhat eccentric?" 
said I, cooling off. 

“Eccentric? Well, I reckon you'll have to spell 
that word entirely with capitals before you get it 
big enough for Old Corkscrew. The old cuss 


20 


ADVENTURE; 8 OF A TENDERFOOT . 


spends his time doing what no one else ever did or 
thought of doing, just for the sake of being con- 
trary ” And this rough sketch of the old cattleman 
I have never, through years of acquaintanceship, 
seen fit to refine or soften; rather on the contrary, 
if possible, to make more decidedly sharp and 
rugged. I have had the pleasure of meeting odd 
characters, but never until I crossed the path of 
old Jack Pettit was it my fortune to discover an 
individual who had developed every-day eccen- 
tricity into the perfection of an art. For him it 
was not enough to wear broadcloth through mud 
and rain, or perhaps on some solitary pilgrimage 
into the foothills, and then array himself in the 
most bedraggled costume possible, even to the un- 
couth precincts of a cattle camp, for the entertain- 
ment of some timid and shrinking young lady, es- 
pecially were the young lady a stranger; but he 
must shock that same young lady by a flow of lan- 
guage harsh, coarse, almost vile, breaking out with 
horrid guffaws, and grinning with ghoulish glee at 
every rude outburst, and then, in all probabilities, 
leave her presence to join a group of his unpolished 
cowboys, whom he would engage for an hour’s 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


21 


stretch with descriptions of rare paintings, beauti- 
ful landscape, or grand buildings — for old Pettit 
had traveled away a fortune in his day, turning 
every sentence with cultured precision and perhaps 
embellishing it with choicest figures of speech. 

In half an hour we had left the low roofs of 
Marysville behind, and were dashing along at a 
good pace, up the broad valley of the Sacramento, 
Tom and I in the middle seat of the rocking 
thoroughbrace, Pettit and a wry-faced Chinaman, 
with their hacks to the driver, in the seat in front. 
My cousin^s employer had presumably taken this 
end of the coach for no other reason than that it 
was much more uncomfortable than the seat be- 
hind, the yellow heathen doing so through sheer 
matter of habit, or rather from long experience in 
taking, perforce, the worst of everything that was 
to be had. 

Old Pettit did not vouchsafe a word during the 
first half-hour, and I had just braced myself, de- 
termined to stare him out of countenance, having 
already resolved in my mind that I despised him, 
when he quietly reached forward and with gentle 
hand rescued the skirt of my overcoat from outside 


22 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


the seat, where it was flapping in the breeze and 
rapidly accumulating mud from the whizzing 
wheels, and tucking it carefully under the leathern 
lap blanket, said politely, while the kindest glance 
I had felt in many a day warmed his round eyes: 

“California mud will soon make a wreck of that 
fine coat if you do not keep it well protected,” and 
with the words he gave me one of the most pleasant 
smiles it has ever been my good fortune to receive. 
Despise him, did I say? Well! give me time to re- 
flect! 

By ten o’clock the low-hung clouds began to 
break asunder, leaving bright streaks of sunlight to 
fall upon the soaked earth here and there, and 
gradually swinging into rude order, crept off, 
like a retreating army, toward the broad river bot- 
tom on our left. Scattered battalions, left behind, 
fought for a time to hold their position next the 
foothills, but soon broke into disordered groups 
and went straggling off to where the main host had 
once more come to a firm stand in the bottom land, 
leaving the all-powerful March sun smiling with 
genial warmth over the valley, triumphant at his 
victory over the elements of the air. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


23 


Tom and I had a thousand things to talk about 
and most rapturously did we embrace the oppor- 
tunity for doing so, quite f orgetting the thumping 
thoroughbrace, with its lank driver, or our whimsi- 
cal fellow-traveler and his leathern-faced compan- 
ion. But as the sunlight fell upon the broad 
plains with their verdant haze of fresh, young 
grass, and drew out, by contrast, the darker shades 
of the sturdy oaks, pensive willows or gnarled 
sycamores that skirted the creek hanks, my eyes 
involuntarily turned toward the charming picture 
— such a picture as I have never been able to con- 
struct from the meagre conceptions stored in my 
otherwise fertile imagination. 

Behind us, off toward the southwest, over the 
white hanks of fog that still clung to the lowlands, 
rose the isolated peaks of the Marysville Buttes, 
standing boldly out in the very heart of the great 
valley. West of these, stretching away on our left, 
until lost in the distance before us, lay the world- 
renowned plains of Colusa, constituting the west- 
ern half of the valley; while beyond appeared the 
blue-hazed outline of the Coast Bange, melting 
from sight in the distance to the south, just ex- 


24 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


posing a bare crest of the white-capped Yallo 
Baileys over the curving horizon to the north. On 
our right, much closer at hand, appeared the lava- 
tinted ridges of the Sierra’s foothills, every point 
standing out in distinct relief, every canyon 
shaded by its southern wall, while back of these, 
tier on tier, reposed the grand mountains them- 
selves, darkened by monstrous forests, excepting, 
indeed, the topmost summits, whose wind-swept 
shoulders glistened in the whiteness of their win- 
ter coat. Straight ahead, grand sentinel of the en- 
tire valley, towered the majestic crown of Mt. 
Shasta. A sublime sight, indeed, for one who had 
dwelt all his days among the low hills of Ohio. 

Before noon one incident transpired which 
served to testify to the accuracy of Tom’s portrait 
of old Pettit, and, incidentally, to keep my cousin 
and I in a state of intermittent tittering for at 
least ten miles. We three had been discoursing, 
at some length, the possible profits to be derived 
from the cattle business, my part being principally 
that of listener, Pettit giving bits of sound, prac- 
tical advice (I half believe that he knew at the time 
of Tom’s intention to quit him!) with pleasing 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


25 


candor, intermixed with the jovial familarity of a 
life-long friend. At length when I had been 
wrought into forgetfulness of past offenses, and, 
in fact, had begun to look upon the old cattleman 
as a jolly and highly interesting old blade, he sud- 
denly brought me up with a sharp turn by replying 
to one of Tom’s remarks with a stony stare, after 
which he gave me a look of bitter contempt, and 
turning to the Chinaman suddenly assaulted him 
with a torrent of unintelligible gibberish, winding 
up with a harsh, cackling laugh. 

“Understand that? Hey? You shovel-headed 
son of a yellow, cock-eyed Mongolian! That’s 
spiced and well-seasoned lingo from the pantry of 
the distant Orient,” and he thrust his elbows into 
the heathen’s ribs, until the poor wretch gasped 
for breath, and glared about for some means of 
escape, absolute terror depicted on his dull feat- 
ures. No sooner had his persecutor ceased his at- 
tack and turned an indifferent gaze upon the pass- 
ing landscape, than the Chinaman seized his 
bundle, which had lain between his feet, and 
clambered by way of the brake block to the back 


26 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


seat of the coach, where he remained in a state of 
evident uneasiness for the rest of the journey. 

After passing for several miles through a scat- 
tering wood composed principally of massive, wide- 
spreading, white oaks, intermingled here and there 
along the streaks of lowland and in the occasional 
creek bottoms with huge cottonwoods and grace- 
ful willows, we reached Chico at a quarter of two, 
and had dinner. Here the Chinaman took his 
leave, doubtless thoroughly convinced that he had 
been the companion of a madman, and two ranch- 
hands, both considerably more than “ slightly 
under the influence of liquor,” took the vacant 
seat, from which they regaled us for the remainder 
of the journey with a spirited (in more senses than 
one) debate about something, the Lord knows 
what, over which each experienced considerable 
difficulty in apprehending his opponent’s meaning, 
at the same time being absolutely in the dark as 
to his own. 

In the first chill of evening we alighted at a low, 
rambling building, partly adobe, partly wood, 
which stood out in gloomy indistinctness close by 
the road, and after a few minutes of unbuckling, 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


27 


buckling, and rebuckling of the heavy straps which 
laced the baggage on to the boot, a number of 
grunted lifts, two or three outbursts of choice ex- 
pletives, a shuffling about of the middle seat and of 
the loose baggage in the bottom of the coach, a dis- 
position of my humble traps, together with sundry 
packages under Tom’s or old Pettit’s guardianship, 
in a neat heap on the veranda of the rambling way- 
side house, a genteel “cussing” for the two ine- 
briated ranch-hands, a couple of lusty swigs from a 
black bottle tendered by the proprietor of the 
place, a hearty adieu to his late passengers, and the 
lean driver clambered to his high seat, deftly inter- 
laced the gloved fingres of his left hand in the maze 
of the reins, whirled his long-lashed whip gently 
through the air, bringing its cracker along the otf 
leader’s ribs with a sharp “Zip!” and away went 
the whole lumbering concern, the sharp clatter of 
steel-clad hoofs resounding through and above the 
jolt and swirl of the heavy vehicle. 

The sound of the vanishing coach had scarcely 
died out on the crisp evening air, when a spring 
wagon drawn by a span of tall mules rattled around 
the house from a course which led off at right 


28 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


angles to the stage road, and drew np at the front. 

“Here we are, hoys!” cried old Pettit briskly. 
“Let’s he off for home. It’s a good four miles to 
the ranch, Mr. Thurman, and the night promises 
to he devilish chilly.” 

“Good avening, gintlemen!” cried a stentorian 
Irish voice as the driver of the mules spied us 
grouped upon the veranda. “It’s glad the ranch’ll 
be to see yez hack, Misther Pettit. Hello, Tom! 
Th’ byes has been closely confined to theer bunks 
wid one continual attack of the blues since you’ve 
been gone, ’nd a quarreling like hell the whole 
time a’wanting uv yer genial mug, fer to cheer 
thum up.” 

There was a ring of genuine fondness in this 
welcome, which surprised me none, for Tom had 
always been a prime favorite among his fellows 
at home, and our sixty-mile ride had shown me 
that his big heart had kept pace in growth with 
his ponderous shoulders. 

“Lend a hand, boys! — Give us a lift with this 
trunk and box!” cried old Pettit, bustling about, 
very busy but doing nothing. In a few minutes 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


the wagon had received its burden and we were off 
for the ranch. 

No sooner had the mules’ heads been turned to 
the east than Pettit unceremoniously reached over 
and took the reins from the driver’s hands, where- 
upon that worthy, who was doubtless well ac- 
quainted with his master’s whims, turned to Tom, 
who sat beside me on my trunk, and whispered 
in a voice somewhat, but not a great deal, softer 
than the whistle of an ocean foghorn: 

“Did yez lay hands upon any wet goods?” 

“Gosh, Mike,” whispered Tom in reply, his 
voice sadly earnest, yet giving me the wink as he 
spoke, or rather its nocturnal equivalent, a soft 
nudge in the ribs, “I tried to corral a bottle but 
got tangled in the damned streets and heard the 
train bellow, so that the stuff was bucked clean out 
of my mind, I’m d ” 

“Oh! Begob, that just the Irish luck of Mike 
Flynn!” broke in the disappointed fellow faintly, 
facing about in his seat with a forlorn sigh, while 
Tom thrust his dogskin-covered fists into his 
mouth to choke down a roar. Upon regaining 
control of his voice he began, at once, such a 


30 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


series of faltering excuses, low-spoken regrets and 
verbose explanations to account for the nonappear- 
ance of the “wet goods” that the Irishman was 
slowly drawn to the edge of absolute despair, 
while my cousin continued to nudge me in the 
ribs, pinch my leg in his vise-like grip and crunch 
my toes under his heel, until I verily felt that I 
would soon fly into a passion and punch his head 
for him, for my jolting stage ride, added to the 
previous jolting train ride, had left me thoroughly 
fagged out, and I felt naught but a peevish re- 
sentment at every fresh display of Tom’s everlast- 
ing jovial spirits, or fresh jolt from his iron-bound, 
inflexible frame. 

Meanwhile we were spinning along through what 
appeared to be a scattering wood. After a time we 
descended a gentle slope at the bottom of which 
the crunching of the wheels, together with a spec- 
tral streak of light on our right, revealed the fact 
that we were crossing the bed of a winter stream. 
Out again and across a more open stretch for a 
mile, and then another watercourse, this one giving 
back a gentle splash where we crossed. As we gain- 
ed the bank beyond the deep bellowing of dogs just 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


31 


roused broke upon the stillness of night, appar- 
ently coming from the region of the stream a mile 
ahead. Along the bank we flew, the rhythmic 
click of the mules 5 feet beating faster and faster 
upon the firm roadbed with each rod we advanced, 
and in a few minutes we were surrounded by frisk- 
ing canines, one bloodhound in their midst send- 
ing forth his musical bellow to add to the general 
cry of welcome. Then a light flashed out ahead 
through an open door, a dark object loomed up 
before us, old Pettit snapped on his brake, snapped 
out a loud “Whoa!” and we were at the ranch. 
There was a stamping and shuffling of heavy boots 
on a board floor close at hand, then five or six men 
came tumbling out to join with the wiggling dogs 
about the wagon, each framed for a moment in the 
doorway in grotesque outline against the light back- 
ground beyond, and then swallowed up in the dark- 
ness outside. Gruff voices in glad accent, hoarse 
voices in sour tone, rattling of tugs and breast 
straps, shuffling of feet, whining, yelping, growl- 
ing of dogs, disjointed neigh of mules, crowding, 
shoving, uneasy moving of vast numbers of cattle 
in an inclosure close at hand, vile smell of pipes, 


32 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


fragrant odor of cigarettes, questions, replies, 
laughter, oaths, bright light within, inky darkness 
without, what wonder that my senses for a time 
forgot their humble tenement! The mules soon 
struck off through the darkness in the wake of two 
legs, brilliantly illuminated by a lantern which vi- 
brated back and forth beside them. A second 
door a few yards away opened and old Pettit 
limped through. A group collected at the rear of 
the wagon, and I heard Tom’s cheery voice in their 
midst. Then the soft “Thu'b” of a drawn cork, 
a muffled “Here’s lookin’ at yeh!” then silence, 
then “Here’s luck!” and another brief silence, a 
pungent smell of brandy, then — “Here^ partner!” 
and a knotted hand thrust a long-necked bottle 
into my face. I managed to gulp down a spoonful 
or so of its contents, thus rendering my interior 
a scorched and cindered ruin, and pressed the 
bottle upon my nearest neighbor, and in the midst 
of my suffering I remember hearing Tom’s voice 
pleading softly: 

“Damn it, fellows! do leave a smell for Mike. 
I drove him nearly locoed by saying I came back 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


33 


dry, and now must give him at least a couple of 
fingers,” and this was the manner of my introduc- 
tion to a California cattle camp. 








































* 




\ 

























Spect he’ll agitate the atmosphere when you straddle him. 


THE BRONCO 




PART II. 


THE BRONCO. 

“Fifteen head!” 

“No, seventeen!” 

“I think you are mistaken!” 

“Well, dang it! Fritz, but I remember distinctly. 
It was seventeen!” 

“You count up, and see if you don’t find your- 
self in error.” 

“I’ll go you! And just for luck, let’s put up a 
dollar on it. A dollar will buy my cigarettes for 
a month.” 

“My dollar wont!” 

“Put her up, and we’ll see. There’s my silver!” 

“And there’s mine!” 

“Now, then, you tally, and I’ll produce the 
figures.” 

“Blaze away!” 

“Well! We got twenty-one cows, with calves, 
and nine steers, from Old Corkscrew.” 

( 37 ) 


38 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


"Thirty adults and twenty-one calves — total, 
fifty-one.” 

"Eight cows and three calves from Burton.” 

"Thirty-eight mature cattle and twenty-four 
striplings — all told, sixty-two.” 

"Four steers from Lone Pete.” 

"Sixty-six.” 

"Twelve cows and nine calves from — What’s his 
name? Old goat-whiskers, down on the river 
bottom?” 

"Whimpler?” 

"Yes.” 

"Which makes fifty-four that have attained their 
majority and thirty- three minors. Eighty-seven 
altogether.” 

"A gentleman from Scott.” 

"Eighty-eight.” 

"And seventeen from Stuttering Steve. That’s 
a hundred and five! By Gosh, Fritz, I take the 
filthy lucre!” and my cousin seized the two coins, 
which we had deposited on the ground, and danced 
about me roaring with laughter. 

It was the second of May. My first two months 
in California had found me at least thirty days 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


39 


in the saddle, the remainder, for the most part, 
in old Pettit’s bunk-house, where, thrown in the 
midst of a group of storm-ridden vaqueros, I had 
made rapid strides in my freshman (translated, 
tenderfoot) year in the great university — The 
West. My studies had progressed with varying 
success. Poker came easy, so, I fear me, did the 
absolute eradication of the Sabbath, but plug to- 
bacco, cut up and dried on a fire shovel, and then 
used in a pipe, caused me several sleepless nights. 
Swearing never appealed to me as a polite accom- 
plishment, nor did the indulgence in that sort of 
practical joking which throws a man out of a three- 
story bunk at midnight, or ejects him, head fore- 
most, down a ten-foot bank at the instigation of a 
tightly drawn string, or picket rope — this last lack 
of appreciation on my part, by the way, having 
caused a temporary rupture between Jack Hayes 
and myself, to say nothing of the temporary ex- 
crescence that I erected on his head with the first 
bit of fenceboard which came to hand. 

Many wholesome lessons had been learned, 
wholesome prices in the line of experience having 
been paid for the same. I had grown ten pounds 


40 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


heavier, ten degrees rougher and a few grains, pre- 
haps, wiser. A unit finding my place in the 
column of western figures — a molecule fitting my- 
self into a hard lump in the world of matter. 

I had found money easy to get and to forget. 
Easy to gain and lose, and what surprised me not 
a little, was the pleasing discovery that each dollar 
in cash was accompanied by a two-dollar credit. 
Thus had Tom and I secured three thousand dol- 
lars’ worth of cattle for eighteen hundred dollars, 
besides two burros, splendid little fellows for 
packing, with pack-saddles and a summer’s supply 
of “grub,” and a good saddle-horse and outfit for 
myself. I had traded my pocket revolver and 
overcoat for a Winchester and a pair of dogskin 
chaparejos, had won a good belt revolver at a 
raffle, and had slowly begun to evolve, outwardly 
at least, into a state of embryonic cowboyism. 

Old Pettit has succeeded in giving us several 
surprises in spite of our avowed determination not 
to be surprised at anything he did. When Tom 
first broached the subject of our proposed venture 
the old fellow scoffed and grinned and called my 
cousin “A damned, simpering idiot!” and sought 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


41 


to dismiss the matter with that, but Tom was so 
selfish as to press upon him a request for fourteen 
months’ wages, whereupon the old wretch waxed 
furious, stormed, and shouted, swore that he would 
not pay over a cent and ordered Tom out of the 
house, all the time limping back and forth before 
him, his features distorted into such a devilish 
twist of contempt, that my cousin, at length, lost 
his temper and was on the point of denting the 
old man’s head in with a poker when I intervened. 
Upon leaving “headquarters,” for such was denom- 
inated Pettit’s one-roomed shanty, Tom swore sav- 
agely, laughed merrily, and declared, at length, 
that he felt sure Old Corkscrew' would swing 
round in a week’s time and give us a jolly send-off. 
Of course Old Corkscrew could not afford to have 
his movements properly prognosticated, so what 
must he do but astonish us that very afternoon 
by mounting an old mare, hipped and lamenting 
the loss of one eye, which he kept for such un- 
looked-for parades, and come cantering out to a 
corral, located some two miles up the creek, where 
I was taking my initatory lesson in the art of calf- 
marking, and there drawing out a greasy buckskin 


42 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


purse and proceeding to count out Tom’s wages in 
clinking yellow twenties, handing them over with 
the air of a prince and adding a shining eagle for 
“good behavior/’ after which he offered us our 
pick of cows and calves from the first bunch we 
should find on the range, at a price ten dollars 
lower per head than we could possibly have se- 
cured them elsewhere. Old Pettit’s whims were 
not all disagreeable. 

On Saturday Tom and I had reached Pettit’s 
upper camp with our last hunch of cattle, and by 
Monday we hoped to strike the old Lassen emi- 
grant trail, which left the hills at Mill Creek — a 
short ten miles to our north — and head for Deer 
Creek Meadows, where Tom assured me we would 
find an abundance of feed for the summer. 

“Only one man ever ventures to take stock in 
there,” explained my cousin, “and as he has sheep, 
and herds them principally in the timber around 
the valley’s edge, I think we’ll have the meadow 
land pretty much to ourselves.” 

“But I thought sheepmen and cow-punchers 
were eternally at loggerheads?” I ventured. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


43 


“Perhaps so as a rule, but this fellow as good as 
invited me to bring a bunch of cattle in there if 
I chose .” 

“Ah, I see. You have kept an eye to the wind- 
ward.” 

“Yes, Pve seen one or two things besides the 
J. P. brand.” 

“And supposing these renegade, throat-cutting 
Indians, everyone has been warning us against, 
should wax thirsty for human gore, would this 
sheepish gentleman be a handy neighbor?” 

“The Mill Creeks?” 

“I believe that’s what you call ’em.” 

A significant smile flittered over Tom’s face and 
he answered with a thrill of earnestness: 

“Let me tell you that if there’s a being on earth 
that will make a damned Mill Creek hunt his hole 
that being is Hi Good.” 

On Sunday we rode to the river bottom, where 
I picked me a saddle horse from a band on sale 
there. He was a lithe, slender fellow with a rather 
glittering eye, it seemed to me, and a decided 
tremor in the delicate nostrils, but Tom declared 
that he was the pick of the band, and, being one- 


44 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


fourth blooded and three-fourths mustang, would 
make a “dick-nailing traveler” and be “tougher 
than whalebone.” He had been broken when 
a three-year-old, but had now gone two years un- 
saddled. 

“ ’Spect he’ll agitate the atmosphere when you 
straddle him,” grinned my cousin pleasantly, as 
we jogged toward the corral Monday morning, 
preparatory to my trying my new mount. “Maybe 
I’d better ride him to-day?” 

I thanked him for this generous offer, but 
stoutly declined to accept it, remarking with some 
tartness that I would ride my own horse, for in- 
deed I felt a trifle nettled at his presumption of my 
incompetency. I had been considered a fairly 
good rider at home, and my month’s experience in 
a high-horned Mexican saddle, on the back of one 
of Pettit’s best cow horses, had given me no rea- 
son to feel uneasy at the prospect of tackling a 
horse that once had been ridden. To be sure I 
had never seen a horse buck, but as there seemed 
to be nothing particularly exciting about the 
“pitching, spiking, or see-sawing” described in the 
bunk-house of evenings, with the vaquero’s usual 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


45 


air of nonchalance, I had been lulled into a feeling 
of perfect indifference with regard to this self- 
same pitching, spiking, etc., which wellnigh led 
to my complete undoing. 

I noticed that Jack — for such, after an eight- 
mile debate, Tom and I had decided to christen the 
new mustang — seemed a trifle pinched and a trifle 
nervous, when Tom sidled cautiously into the lit- 
tle shed where we had left him to discourse a bale 
of hay during the night, but this I thought simply 
betrayed his mettle, a thing of which I was particu- 
larly proud. I held him by his hair hackamore 
rope while Tom saddled him, and when all was 
ready my cousin took the rope, after adjusting a 
loop large enough to serve me as reins, and lead- 
ing him to the center of the corral cautioned me 
as follows: 

“Now, then, be sure you are ready for business 
before you crawl aboard, and, by God! don’t be all 
day hitting the saddle when you once get your foot 
in the stirrup. Keep a stiff leg and freeze to the 
cantle.” 

I thought he was putting himself to unneces- 
sary trouble, but did not tell him so, for J ack was 


46 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


twisting around pivot fashion through the middle 
of the corral, and necessitated my pivoting in like 
manner in order to keep on the near side of him. 
At last he quieted down, and after one or two ef- 
forts I got my left foot planted in the stirrup 
when, grasping the hair rope tightly and taking a 
full hreath, I vaulted lightly and gracefully into 
the air and sat down firmly — yea, forcibly — in the 
very center of the corral, while Jack, after kicking 
a bushel or more of loose dirt into my face, dashed 
toward the gate. Tom headed him, however, so, 
wheeling, he plunged forward at a mad run and 
circled several times around the inclosure, stopping 
finally with an abruptness that ploughed the dirt 
high in air and, facing me, gave vent to a loud, 
whistling snort of defiance. When I brushed the 
dirt from my eyes and rose to a sitting posture I 
discovered my cousin Tom sprawling with the most 
shocking indecorum upon the ground by the corral 
gate, making the fence posts clatter in echo to his 
startling peals of laughter, and digging up the 
earth with his spurred heels in a very ecstacy of de- 
light. I tried to find something hard to throw at 
him, but owing to the force with which I had de- 


AD VENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


47 


scended upon mother earth, every clod within a 
radius of twenty feet had been pulverized and ren- 
dered unfit for mortal weapon, so after a moment’s 
fruitless fumbling I arose and started with set teeth 
toward Jack. To my surprise he made no attempt 
to escape, hut suffered me to recover the rope with 
no more marked signs of disapproval than a soft, 
catlike sidestepping and a delicate trembling of the 
sensitive nostrils, his bright eyes watching my 
every movement. 

“Better let me try him!” called Tom, rising to 
the dignity of a< standing posture when he saw that 
I was preparing for another trial. 

“Mind your own business, will you?” I snapped 
back. 

“He’ll break your damned neck!” replied he, 
reassuringly. 

“Very well, when he does you may ride him,” I 
returned ungraciously. I succeeded in making the 
saddle this time, thanks to the lesson taught by 
my previous disaster, and perhaps a little to my 
stubborn determination, and by good luck got both 
feet squarely in the stirrups; but I had not the 
tenth part of a second in which to congratulate 


48 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


myself upon this hit of good fortune, for the sin- 
ewy brute contracted into a hard knot and vaulted 
into the air to such a height that I thought vaguely 
of reaching out for a star on which to steady my- 
self. Down he came, stiff-legged, with a thud that 
nearly snapped my head from my shoulders; then 
— jerk! plunge! and up again before I could gasp 
in a breath, and you may he sure I was in need of 
one, that first jolt having crushed my lungs dry. 
Once, twice I remember of soaring skywards (Tom 
reassured me afterward with the assertion that I 
“stuck him for four jumps”), then there was a sud- 
den side-flirt, an extra wave in the pliant backbone, 
a swift revolution through space, and I lay flat on 
my hack, this time actually immersed in a minia- 
ture milky way. 

I am as determined as most young fellows, yet 
I know when I am whipped. I knew it now. 
Jack had whipped me, and by the time Tom had 
reached my side, I was over my snappish humor 
and ready to confess my overwhelming defeat. 
This I did with as brave a smile as I could muster, 
hut Tom was such a big-hearted fellow that he 
knew the time for laughing was past, and soon put 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


49 


me once more on good terms with myself, smooth- 
ing over my downfall until at last it began to ap- 
pear almost in the light of a victory. He brushed 
me off tenderly, swore at Jack, declared that he 
was the most vicious bucker he had seen in a year 
and expressed a fear that he, himself, would be 
floored if he tried him. 

“Go get my saddle off Buster and I'll tackle 
him,” he said at length, after I had found the use 
of my legs. I did as requested, but found on re- 
entering the corral that Jack had broken the hack- 
amore rope and was trying effectually to keep out 
of Tom’s reach. 

“Have to rope him, I reckon,” said my cousin, 
smiling as ever, but with a ring in his voice which 
I knew meant trouble for Master J ack. The riata 
was secured, and after a couple of throws its swish- 
ing loop soared gracefully over the excited animal’s 
head. As he felt it tighten across his throat he 
made one desperate rush for freedom. 

“Look out!” cried Tom, and I sprang aside, as 
I saw my cousin brace himself on his sturdy legs, 
with the lariat pressed around his hip. The horse 
reached the end of the rope, there was a thrill in 


50 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


the braided rawhide, a rigid knotting of the mus- 
cular neck and heavy wrists of my cousin, a 
scrambling plunge, a heavy fall, and Jack lay 
stretched in ignominious helplessness at the end of 
the singing rope, while Tom stood grasping the 
other end in grim triumph, a pillar of tensed mus- 
cle, magnificent in his strength. In a moment the 
rigid tension of face and neck relaxed, suffering 
the usual merry smile to light up his pleasant 
features, and, loosening the rope so that the dis- 
comfited mustang could rise, he cried: 

“I think I can adhere to the gentleman now. 
Crack-the-whip is a little new to him. Whoa, 
nice fellow! That’s a beauty! Don’t try to paw 
my hat off now! Bring my saddle, Fritz! Whoa, 
boy, a little patting won’t injure you! Be care- 
ful! Here! Hold him! If he tries to act funny, 
choke him down. Now, lad! Ah! boy! Steady! 
Here you go! Stay with him, Fritz! Whoa, Jack- 
son! this cinch won’t hurt a pretty horse like you! 
Pshaw, no! Hell, no!” And cooing, whistling, 
patting, rubbing, warning, threatening in the 
blandest manner possible, Tom soon had his own 
saddle set and cinched, after which he maneuvered 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


61 


for a short time and at length succeeded in mount- 
ing him. Jack evidently, very speedily, came to 
the conclusion that this soft-spoken, hard-limbed 
fellow who now bestrode him was no tenderfoot, 
or else he realized, all at once, that he had taken 
ample exercise that morning, for, to my surprise, 
and I doubt not to Tom’s entire satisfaction, he 
started briskly forward after a few seconds of 
balky indecision, at a pace which gave cheering 
promise as to his future worth, in a measure pre- 
dicting truthfully the splendid saddle-horse that he 
afterward became. 










“Jose, a grim but faithful old Spaniard.” 



THE TR AIL 







PART III. 


THE TRAIL. 

Wednesday morning, May 5, and such a fresh, 
calm, health-inspiring May morning as California 
only can glory in, when broad plains of dew-kissed 
grass and flowers stretch in restful variation of up- 
land and lowland, creek bed and gentle swell, from 
rocky foothills to heavily wooded river bottom; the 
higher benches, touching the toes of the Sierras; 
yellowed by myriads of awakening dandelions; 
the richer land, nearer the stream, streaked and 
spotted by great armies of richly coated poppies; 
while between the legions in yellow and the legions 
in gorgeous orange, whole battalions of outposts 
flecked the landscape — timid bluebells creeping to 
the edges of miniature ravines, sly Indianheads 
peeping out from between rocks, facing the hosts 
on this side or on that, laughing buttercups hold- 
ing undisputed possession of knolls and banks, 
chivalric larkspurs commanding platoons of admir- 
(55) 


56 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


ing field lilies, while the rugged gillias, with rusty 
blue helmets, scouted the rough borderland be- 
tween plain and mountain. Through the balmy 
air, scented by the sweet breath of morning, floats 
ed the lark’s glad song, carrying with it savors of 
clover and dewdrops, while close to the flower- 
jeweled earth playful bevies of twittering linnets 
dashed hither and thither like joyful little mes- 
sengers of peace and contentment. 

Before the lordly sun had glanced over the rug- 
ged shoulder of the mountains to dissipate the 
freshness of early morning by his unconquerable 
gaze, my cousin and I had driven our little band 
of cattle from Pettit’s upper corral and started 
them toward Deer Creek’s fringe of wood, with the 
hearty adieus of cowboys ringing in our ears. Old 
Pettit did not bid us adieu — oh, no! He had ac- 
companied us to the corral, together with a group 
of his men, dressed in his greasiest coat and mount- 
ed upon a magnificent chestnut stallion, had super- 
intended the packing of our two burros, directed 
us how to head our band into Deer Creek’s ford, 
given us some generous hints as to the best mode 
of driving, and, in short, Had acted the true friend 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


57 


and experienced counselor out and out. Conse- 
quently, nothing would have seemed more natural 
than for him to have hidden us a good western 
“So long!” at parting. This being the natural 
thing to do, of course he did nothing of the sort, 
but instead, turned on his followers, the moment 
Tom dismounted to open the creaking old gate, and 
swore at them for delaying to “tend to other peo- 
ple's business”; then, wheeling his stallion, rode 
off toward the hills without a glance to the right 
or left. The men paid no attention to the old 
fellow's gruff attack. Joining together, they gave 
us a merry start; then, after riding with us for a 
quarter of a mile, each gave us a cordial hand- 
clasp before turning to gallop off in the wake of 
their whimsical boss. 

Tom, mounted on Buster, and I on my new 
friend Jack, had a pretty busy time for the first 
two hours in keeping certain homesick members 
of our flock from parting company with their dis- 
trusted fellows and starting helter-skelter for their 
old homes, leaving Jose, a grim but faithful old 
Spaniard whom we had engaged for the summer, 
fully occupied in towing the discontented pack 


58 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


animals along in the rear, hustling the slower mem- 
bers of the band, and rolling and smoking a never- 
ending succession of cigarettes. 

About eight o’clock we reached the hank of Deer 
Creek, at the old ford, a half-mile below the open 
jaws of the canyon, and here our first real skirmish 
took place. The stream, swollen by melting snows, 
swept by with a rush and a roar, presenting an om- 
inous passage. 

“B’gosh! she’s a good ten inches higher than she 
was a week ago!” said Tom, riding to the bank 
and eyeing the turbid water keenly. “If a calf gets 
into that ripple below his name will be trousers.” 

“How deep do you think it is?” I inquired, for 
the water was too muddy for one to determine. 

“Deep enough to swim anything but old bull 
or those tall steers, I reckon.” 

“Great guns!” I cried, in consternation at 
thought of our short-limbed donkeys. “What will 
become of our grub?” 

“Have to unpack and tote the pantry on our 
saddle horses,” replied Tom briefly. More serious 
to his mind seemed the problem of crossing the 
cattle, so he spurred his horse into the stream and 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


53 


found it, at the deepest part, nearly midside on his 
horse, and so swift that he had to ride to the far- 
ther hank before attempting to turn. 

“Mak 5 a dey calves go aboov — aboov!” said Jose, 
as he wrapped his bridle rein about his wrist and 
proceeded to roll a fresh cigarette. 

“Suppose they get under the big ones?” I ven- 
tured, for indeed, such a result seemed very prob- 
able to my mind. 

“No! — no!” ejaculated the Spaniard, shaking his 
head vehemently. “Dey float — dey kick — dey 
bellow! De beeg ones keep dem from swim away 
off. Give ’em whoop! Altogether. See?” and 
he tossed his arms in the air as though shoving 
the whole hand into the stream in one lump. His 
reasoning seemed good. Tom declared it was just 
the caper, so, after thrashing the donkeys to one 
side, where one immediately went to sleep, while 
his mate fell to browsing on the dead twigs of a 
fallen sycamore, we began circling the hand in or- 
der to work the calves out on the up-stream side, 
Tom and Jose dashed upon the calm-eyed crea- 
tures, slashing them with their quirts and giving 
vent to vociferous whoops in the most approved 


60 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


cattle-driving style. The calves, startled by the 
sudden onslaught, bawled in alarm. The anxious 
mothers bellowed in sympathy and crowded against 
each other, trying to reach the sides of their dis- 
comfited offspring. Yearlings tossed their tails 
in the air and rushed pellmell, some this way, some 
that, while two three-year-old steers, to add to the 
general excitement, locked horns in mortal com- 
bat on the outskirts of the band. Jack, whose con- 
duct since Monday had been most exemplary, now 
seemed to feel all at once that something unusual 
was expected of all hands, and, in accordance with 
this belief, he proceeded to buck me off into the 
very middle of the surging mob. This was more 
than some of the wild-eyed steers could withstand, 
and, with a whistle of alarm, half a dozen of them 
plunged into the water and made for the opposite 
bank. Others followed, and by the time I had 
righted myself the stream was spanned from bank 
to bank by a jam of red bodies. Jack was easily 
captured and remounted. I had just stoutly de- 
clined to follow Tom’s laughing advice to “spur 
him in the neck,” when I beheld one of the young- 
est calves drifting helplessly toward the boiling 
rift below the herd. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 61 

“Here! Look here!” I cried excitedly, but my 
cousin at that instant struck the spurs into his 
horse’s side and plunged past me down the bank, 
loosening his lariat as he did so. I pressed for- 
ward in my excitement, fearful that the little crea- 
ture would be lost, for indeed it did seem as though 
the swirling waters would engulf their victim. It 
reached the upper suction of the rapid and shot 
forward with increased velocity just as Tom’s long 
rope circled deliberately over his head. Ten feet 
more and another circle of the rope, then, just as 
the tired little head began to bob up and down in 
the first step of the rapid, the lariat cut the air like 
an arrow and dropped its spread loop in a circle 
around the bobbing head. A quick jerk — a strug- 
gle in the water, and Tom was towing the calf safe- 
ly and steadily toward the other bank. 

“Bully for you, Tom!” I shouted, too full of joy 
at the rescue to remain silent. 

“Gude trow! Gude trow!” cried Jose, his 
swarthy face grinning approval. 

Under the skillful manipulation of Tom and the 
Spaniard it required scarcely ten minutes to un- 
pack, transport baggage and donkeys to the far- 


62 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


ther side and lash the burdens once more firmly 
in place, after which we clambered up a steep as- 
cent on the north side of the stream, and found 
ourselves on a high, rocky plain which skirted the 
foothills for miles before us, broken at intervals by 
the oak-covered bottom-lands of winter streams. 
This open and comparatively level ground gave us 
a good opportunity for drilling our recruits in the 
art of marching, so that ere noon, by dint of much 
spurring and hard riding, and more or less supple- 
mentary swearing, we had succeeded in getting 
our squadrons into an orderly column, several of 
our broad-horned steers taking readily to the rank 
of file leaders, while old bull, together with some 
of the soft-footed calves, soon displayed marked 
aptitude for filling the position of stragglers. 

Shortly before twelve o’clock our little army 
filed down a crumbling, cliff-like embankment 
which overlooked the broad, chaparral-covered flat 
of Dry Creek, and came to a halt in a little open- 
ing on the farther bank. Near the edge of the 
opening stood a rude, one-roomed cabin, with a 
large stone fireplace, before which we dismounted. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


“Hi Good’s camp/’ explained Tom, gazing mus- 
ingly at the weather-beaten structure. 

“Ho, ho!” I exclaimed. “Our Indian-hating 
friend, who suffers us to be his summer neighbors 
in Deer Creek Meadows?” 

“Indian-killing fiend would fit him better,” re- 
plied Tom. “Yet he is as tame as you or I when 
among his paleface mates. Grandma Griffith says 
he’s a ‘regular Chinee Wall a’twixt we’uns and the 
Mill Creeks!’ and I believe the old lady hit the 
nail on the head pretty damned straight.” 

“More of a Spartan wall, I should say, judging 
by the isolation and insecurity of his castle. Do 
they ever try to ambush him?” 

“Well, yes, they have tried it, when he first ven- 
tured to interfere with their midnight raids, but 
Sandy Young swears that they’ve never set a trap 
for him yet but he’s shot and scalped from one to 
five of the gentlemen before the deal was out.” 

“Killed and scalped?” 

“Yes, sirree.” 

“Scalp them?” 

“You may gamble he does” 

“What for?” 


64 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


“More than I can say. Maybe for revenge — 
maybe for pastime.” 

“Is he boastful?” 

“No. Not enough to satisfy a fellow’s curiosity, 
especially a soft-hoof like you.” 

“Oh, dry up! Does he scalp them all? I mean, 
all that he plugs?” 

“Well, I don’t know what you’d call all, but 
dam’ me if I haven’t seen this very shack half-full 
of Indian hair — it gives a fellow the buck ague.” 

“Oh, put her easy — say a quarter full.” 

“Do you wish me to name time and place? If 
I said half, I still hang to the loggerhead.” 

“Well, this becomes decidedly thrilling. You 
never said anything of it before.” 

“Thrilling? Say, Fritz, I’ll bet a horse there’s 
a scalp in there now. Let’s look?” 

I was startled by this proposition, but was burn- 
ing with awed curiosity, so we tossed our reins to 
the ground and entered the cabin. I let Tom pre- 
cede me, for I felt a degree of awe at the thought 
of the lonely hut and its renowned proprietor that 
I would have been reluctant to confess to my 
steely-nerved cousin, Inside were table, bedstead 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


65 


and stools, much the same as I had seen in other 
California cabins, several cans and empty car- 
tridge-boxes kicking about the floor, but nothing, 
you may be sure, that was worth carrying away. 
My confidence returned at sight of these familiar 
objects, but in a moment Tom drove a shower of 
icy chills down my backbone by crying triumph- 
antly: 

“Here they are, by gosh!” 

I approached him, and there, sure enough, 
hanging beside the fireplace, dried and wrinkled, 
were three strips of human skin, decorated with 
mats of coarse, black, greasy hair. We gazed at 
the gruesome objects for a moment in silence, and 
then Tom remarked, grinning with palpable de- 
light at my look of horror: 

“Pretty little mantel ornaments, hey? Wonder 
if the captain would care if we took one each for a 
keepsake ?” and he reached forward as though seri- 
ously bent on selecting one, at which I swore at 
him and hurried from the cabin, he following, con- 
vulsed with laughter. 

By this time Jose had started a little “Injun 
fire” of dried chaparral; taken the lunch kit (de§* 


66 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


ignated by Tom as “the pantry”) from the packs, 
and had placed the grinning black coffee-pot upon 
the flames. I was more fagged from the morn- 
ing’s ride than I cared to acknowledge, so threw 
myself on the ground in the dense shade cast by a 
large, full-leaved manzanita, but Tom, after roll- 
ing a cigarette, strolled off through the chaparral 
to see that none of the cows were successful in 
coaxing their tired babies off to secure hiding- 
places in the brush. 

After dinner and a half-hour’s rest in the shade, 
my cousin and I mounted and headed our band 
out of the creek bottom, and thence through the 
scattering oaks toward a broad, treeless, Y-shaped 
slope two miles ahead. Allowing the cattle to feed 
it took us two hours to reach the line of gnarled 
and sickly-looking oaks that marked the upper 
border of the slope. Tom now pointed out the 
dimly discernible road over which Peter Lassen 
had conducted the first party of emigrants to enter 
the Sacramento Valley from the north. It was a 
mere ghost of a road. Few if any wagons had seen 
this route since the last creaking old ox-schooner 
had rumbled into the valley some time in the ’50’s, 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


67 


and, indeed, at the present day, it seems almost 
incredible that wheeled vehicles over pursued 
such a break-neck course and got through with 
spoke or felloe to tell the tale. It is now used en- 
tirely by stockmen who use pack animals when 
driving their herds to and from their summer 
ranges in the mountains, and is fittingly styled 
“the Lassen Trail.” 

Following along the dim, rock-bordered track, 
we soon found ourselves on a boulder-strewn ridge, 
whose northern side dropped off in a series of al- 
most perpendicular slides to Mill Creek, while to 
the south the dreary ridges and ravines became 
noticeably steeper with each mile w r e advanced. 
We made about eight miles during the afternoon, 
pitching our camp for the night near an oozing 
spring at the upper end of one of the innumerable 
canyons which wound off toward the west, grow- 
ing steeper and rougher until swallowed up at 
length in the deep, dark gorge of Mill Creek. 
Back of the spring was a rocky point, and to the 
left, running parallel to the ridge, was a dense 
thicket. With these harriers on two sides we ex- 
perienced no difficulty in holding our stock during 


68 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


the night, especially as many of them were leg- 
weary and quite ready to rest. To he secure, how- 
ever, we had Jose take his “turkey” and seek a 
place of repose beyond the rocky point, while Tom 
and I spread our blankets under an oak on the 
open side nearest the camp, where, with the 
rhythmic, if not melodious, croaking of a family 
of frogs in my ears, I soon fell into a sound sleep. 

The next morning we were in our saddles by 
an hour of sun, swinging our hand up the open 
hillside of Twenty Mile Hollow. This is a broad 
canyon with gently sloping sides and a minimum 
of steep gullies and impenetrable thickets, up 
which the trail winds for some four miles, before 
crossing and clambering up to the rocky backbone 
to the south. We did not cross there; however, 
but held on to our course, directly up the Hollow, 
expecting to find good feeding ground at its head. 
We were not disappointed. Three miles above the 
crossing the Hollow ended in a broad, rounded 
basin, on whose sides there was an abundance of 
grass. The entire stretch of foothills thus far, 
though rocky and scant of soil, afforded no mean 
pasture at this season. On the ridges, it is true. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


69 


the lava, barren and desolate, often lay exposed 
to view, like the projecting vertebrae of some 
starved monster, but along the sloping sides and in 
the numerous coves and basins a good growth of 
wild oats, bunch grass and alfilerilla sprang from 
the light soil, finding shelter beside the innumer- 
able boulders, or beneath the outspread branches 
of chaparral, manzanita and buckeye. 

We halted until three in the afternoon, having 
found plenty of cold water for camp use in a cave 
just over the brow of the ridge on the Mill Creek 
side. While lying on the shaded slope of the ba- 
sin, our stockman’s instinct rejoicing in the sight 
of the fattening herd, we whiled away an hour or 
more in repulsing imaginary attacks from thiev- 
ing Mill Creeks, finding considerable amusement 
in the diversion, but, ere night had blanketed the 
earth in darkness, our laughter on that subject had 
been effectually checked. 

We wished to make Burnt Corral for the night, 
a camp which Tom thought lay about a mile within 
the pine timber. The trail was exceedingly rough 
and narrow between the head of Twenty Mile and 
the pinery, the last three miles being along a crook- 


70 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


ed “hog’s back,” hemmed closely on either side by 
dense thickets, numerous specimens of the birch, 
dogwood, pepperwood and burr-oak beginning to 
appear in the impenetrable mat of brush as we 
neared the timber; and it was not without a hard 
struggle that we pushed our band through. Once 
within the timber, however, under cover of the 
majestic pines, and the difficulties of the trail 
ceased. Here was no constriction in our course 
— no stiff-limbed chaparral brush, no burnt lava 
under foot, nor hot sun overhead. Instead, the 
trail was as broad as the rounded back of the 
ridge itself, with plenty of breathing room, driving 
room and running room. The lagging cattle in- 
creased their pace and seemed no longer bent on 
giving us the slip; the horses pricked up their ears 
and sniffed the balmy breath from the pines, shak- 
ing off their fatigue with surprising alacrity upon 
feeling the damp, soft carpet of the forest under 
foot. 

Yet Tom’s mile lengthened into a long two, and 
the deep, silent forest was fast becoming shrouded 
in the darkness of night ere we reached the old 
log enclosure known as “Burnt Corral.” As the 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


71 


leading cattle filed down the steep pitch just be- 
fore reaching the camp, I saw Tom spur out to one 
side and face about in a position for counting them 
as they passed. I followed along in the rear of the 
band, and as I approached him I noticed his eyes 
fall upon the last stragglers and then dart quickly 
back, as though expecting more. His eyes met 
mine and I saw trouble. 

“Some gone?” I inquired anxiously. 

“One,” he replied, holding up a finger, and 
glancing hastily back along the trail, as though in 
hopes of seeing the missing critter lagging behind. 

“Oh, pshaw! you made a miscount,” I said, re- 
assured. “It’s mighty easy to do when they go as 
irregularly as they did here.” I delivered this 
opinion with the air of an expert, having heard 
old cattlemen discourse thus, for, to tell the truth, 
I had, myself, essayed to count our little flock a 
hundred times in vain. 

Tom shook his head and replied decisively: 

“No, sir — I got a fine count on ’em. There was 
no hustling — they all went slow and kept up a 
steady lick till they got clean past.” 

“Well, if you’re certain — I suppose you are! — 


72 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


but I don’t see how a fellow can tell on such a 
count. It’s mighty near dark, too.” 

“Well, I think I can make a dead shot on a 
bunch like this, and I tell you there’s one gone. 
Let’s ride down and see if we can miss any of the 
markers.” 

“Old bull’s on hand — and the little lame steer,” 
I said, as my eye ran the band over. The cattle 
came to a halt in the glen where Jose had started 
his fire, close by the corral, and we looked them 
over carefully, as we worked them slowly into the 
enclosure. 

“We had them all in the head of Twenty Mile, 
for I got a good count as they took the ridge this 
side, but I’ll bet a horse we’re one short now,” said 
Tom, as the last of the tired bovines shambled 
slowly through the opening in the rude log fence. 

“Maybe one of the sorefooted ones dropped out 
in that thick brush just below the timber,” I ven- 
tured. 

“That’s about the size of it,” replied my cousin. 
“I tell you what we’d better do. Jack is fresher 
than Buster. I’ll stay and help get the chuck, and 
you ride back as far as that first thicket below the 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


73 


pinery. Keep your eye peeled and maybe you’ll 
find it back here a piece. Whenever they drop out 
from sore feet, they generally try to follow up as 
soon as the band is out of sight. Better ride pret- 
ty damned fast, for it will soon be dark.” 

I hurried away as soon as he ceased speaking and 
urged Jack into a lope on gaining the top of the 
.first two-hundred yard ascent. The short twilight 
was fast fading away, and I knew full well that the 
coming night would be doubly dark in that dense 
timber. I kept a sharp lookout as I rode, expect- 
ing to catch sight of the delinquent every minute, 
for I could not believe that one had been left 
far behind. The further I rode, the more con- 
vinced I became that Tom had made a miscount, 
and at a little open swale, in whose waning light 
the surrounding forest appeared cast in more 
gloomy darkness, I came very near turning about 
and giving up the search. I knew it to be close to 
a mile to the edge of the pinery. After a momen- 
tary hesitation, however, I concluded to go as far 
as Tom had desired, so clapping spurs to my horse, 
galloped forward once more into the timber. Jack 
had splendid wind, and, without slacking rein, I, 


74 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


in a few minutes, emerged from the last knot of 
pines, and clattered down the narrow, rocky trail 
between thickets of dreary chaparral, beyond. 

Suddenly Jack stopped short, with a snort of 
terror. I spoke to him and glanced apprehen- 
sively around. My utter loneliness in that wild 
region struck a du chill through my heart, as my 
eyes fell upon the wilderness of brush and boulders 
that surrounded me. Jack stepped nervously to 
one side, and as he thrust his nose forward and to- 
ward the ground, I perceived that something in the 
trail ahead must have frightened him. I strained 
my eye to catch sight of any unusual object, but 
could distinguish nothing excepting the dim open- 
ing in the brush which marked the trail. I 
touched him gently with my spur, but he pressed 
tremblingly to one side and behaved as though 
about to wheel in his tracks. The dying light over 
the far distant Coast Range, where the sun had 
sunk from sight, still threw a patch of somber gray 
upon the western sky, and this being directly in 
my front, I suddenly caught sight of a spot of 
brightness in the trail, ten feet ahead. It looked 
like the dim light reflected from a pool of water. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


75 


I dismounted to examine it more closely, holding 
Jack’s rein tightly clutched in my hand, for I 
had no desire to be left afoot in that spot with a 
weird sense of danger tugging at my heart. Yes, 
it was certainly water, a blotch as broad as my 
hat in the middle of the trail, with a thin ribbon 
leading off into the brush on either side. I 
stooped and felt of it, but recoiled with a shudder 
as the cold, clotted stuff slipped through my fin- 
gers. It was blood. 











































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Old Bull * * * came to the rescue by deliberately stalking on to 

the glistening crust.” 



THE NIGHT GUARD 


V 




PART IV. 


THE NIGHT GUARD. 

Tom’s count had been correct. One critter had 
dropped out on the last stretch of the dismal, lava- 
capped foothills, and here was its blood besprink- 
ling the trail, within one hundred yards of the re- 
freshing pines. I think that I am no more cow- 
ardly than the average of mankind when a known 
danger confronts me, but my imagination is one 
that springs from a standstill to a mad gallop with 
one bound. Possible danger, coupled with dark 
mystery, unnerves me. For a moment my flesh 
crept with terror. My eyes sought to pierce the 
foreboding gloom, that seemed to press with such 
awful silence upon me. It was for a moment only; 
then I mastered my boyish weakness, forcing the 
current of my thoughts into a more normal course. 
The thought of Jack’s presence gave me a feeling 
of comfort. I grasped the handle of my six- 
shooter and derived a sense of security from the 
( 79 ) 


80 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


touch. The horse’s alarm seemed to have been 
inspired entirely by the blood that lay in the trail. 
What should I do? That it was the blood of the 
missing animal I never for a moment doubted; how 
it came to be shed did not enter my mind. 

The ribbon of blood, as well as I could discover 
in the growing darkness, appeared to lead into the 
brush on my left, so I determined to puslh out in 
that direction a short distance, hoping soon to find 
the straggler, either dead or wounded. All 
thought of personal danger had now left me; in- 
stead, I had become only anxious to discover the 
object of my search. The chaparral was scarcely 
five feet high, and I had advanced into it some 
forty or fifty feet, when suddenly my horse, whose 
reluctance to follow I detected by the resistance 
upon the rein, threw his head to one side and gave 
utterance to a shrill snort of alarm. At the same 
instant I heard a crackling of brush on my right. 
I paused and listened, but no other sound reached 
my ears. Jack still kept his trembling muzzle 
turned in that direction, however, and my judg- 
ment told me that the sharp, quick noise I heard 
had not been made by a tired or crippled steer, and 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


81 


then for the first time a vision of Mill Creeks 
flashed through my brain. In an instant I was in 
the saddle. Wheeling about, I let Jack pick his 
way back to the trail, thence up the rocky ascent 
to the towering pines. Once on the comparatively 
level ground, however, swallowed up in the black- 
ness of the forest, and my spurred heels instinctive- 
ly pressed his sides. Jack was no thoroughbred, 
but I have never yet seen the track champion that 
I think could have hung on my flank during that 
two-mile run back to Burnt Corral. 

It was with a decided feeling of relief that I at 
last caught a glimpse of the flickering firelight 
playing among the black tree trunks, that towered 
above the hollow where the corral lay, no spot hav- 
ing ever seemed to me more secure and homelike 
than the rude bivouac, lighted by the brisk camp 
fire, or no friends more dear than my cousin, the 
swarthy-faced Spaniard or even the sleepy donkeys 
that stood blinking in sociable proximity to the 
snapping blaze. 

“Ahoy, shipmate!” sang out Tom as I ap- 
proached. “Just in time for refreshments! Bet- 
ter take your bronco down below the corral and 
hobble him by old Buster. Any luck?” 


82 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


While unsaddling I briefly told my story. Tom’s 
face became serious. 

“Mill Creeks, sure as .hell!” he exclaimed, on 
hearing the completion of my tale. Then turning, 
he seated himself by the spread canvas, mechani- 
cally pouring out a cup of coffee, and, after taking 
a gulp, continued grimly: 

“By jingo, fellows, we’ll have to keep our eyes 
peeled, or we are liable to find ourselves successful 
candidates for the boneyard before morning.” 

“Are they apt to tackle us?” I inquired, by no 
means delighted at the prospect. 

“They are not apt to tackle anything that they 
know is looking for them, but let them find us off 
our guard and they’ll head us toward the happy 
hunting ground with a running start.” 

“Then we’d better take turn standing guard?” 

“No; we’d better all sleep with both ears open 
and one eye ajar.” 

“Why not keep guard?” 

“Well, Fritz, we’re in for a summer’s campaign, 
and the sooner we learn to sleep on the watch, the 
better it will be for our constitutions. We’re al- 
ready forty miles from the edge of nowhere, and 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


83 


every step takes us farther. Don’t you know this 
is a sandy game we’re playing from start to finish, 
and sand is something that the Mill Creeks don’t 
dally with.” 

“Supposing they steal the horses?” 

“They’ll never make a sneak on a horse — smell 
too loud. If they try any night work the broncs 
will be our best friends, for they’d mighty soon 
rouse the camp.” 

Old J ose did not seem to comprehend the possi- 
ble jeopardy that menaced us, being a stranger to 
the northern part of the state, and thus knowing 
nothing of the atrocities of these renegade Indians. 
Tom tried to dissuade him from sleeping in the 
open moonlight, but all in vain, and at last my 
cousin ceased his remonstrances and growled out 
to me, as the stolid Spaniard shouldered his blank- 
ets and trudged out from under the pines to a little 
open spot some fifty feet away: 

“Let him go! Let the old cuss go! He’ll have 
to smoke about ninety-nine cigarettes before morn- 
ing, and maybe when he sits up after the moon 
rises and finds a nest of arrows sticking through 
him in different directions, he’ll begin to think the 
Mill Creeks are not to be sneezed at ” 


84 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


As for us, my cousin and I made our beds down 
in the densest shadow to be found close at hand, 
and very carefully placed our rifles and six-shoot- 
ers by our sides. Once during the night I awoke 
with a jerk and sat bolt upright. The moon had 
been up for about two hours and was casting her 
mellow rays slantingly through the forest, lighting 
up strips of the glen here and there, leaving the 
shaded portions darker by contrast. Wliat had 
startled me? There, a few feet to my left lay the 
muffled form of my cousin. Twenty yards down 
the glen stretched the logs of the corral fence, their 
white sides gleaming where the moonlight fell 
upon them. All quiet within the inclosure. No 
rush. No alarm. Only the muffled grinding of 
the ruminating cattle. I lay down again. After a 
time I heard the dismal howl of a wolf, floating in 
mournful cadence through the forest, and shortly 
afterward a movement among the cattle, which 
whetted my attention, but gradually the mysteri- 
ous night softened its myriad whisperings and 
again I slept. 

After breakfast the next morning, Jose and I 
started the cattle up a long hill over which the trail 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


85 


led, while Tom rode back to investigate the blood- 
stains I had seen, and to find, if possible, the miss- 
ing cow brute. 

"About four miles ahead you’ll come to The 
Narrows,” said Tom as he mounted, "and just be- 
yond, on your left, will be as good picking as you’ll 
find. Swing the band out there and let ’em feed.” 

"When will you overtake us?” 

"Don’t know — guess you might expect me by 
ten o’clock.” 

Neither of us mentioned the Mill Creeks, but 
our thoughts were on them, nevertheless. As my 
cousin turned to ride away I swallowed the lump 
rising in my throat, and called after him: 

"Hadn’t I better go with you?” 

"No. You stay with the cloven-hoofs. I’m 
afraid old Greaser can’t drive and smoke cigarettes 
to advantage, at the same time. Don’t worry 
about me. I’m good for a full-hand bluff with the 
Mill Creeks.” 

Yet it was with a strikingly weak feeling about 
the heart that I saw him disappear among the tow- 
ering pines, his jovial manner and merry whistle 
quite failing to bring moisture to my throat, or 


86 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


drive away the dread presentment of danger that 
preyed upon me. I knew that it was a childish ap- 
prehension — one that should be stifled outright, for 
even were there danger in the search, our position 
made it imperative that it should be faced. Had I 
taken Tom’s place and ridden down the narrow 
trail, my mind would have been much less per- 
turbed, but shuffling slowly along in the rear of the 
lumbering band, my fancy found ample space in 
which to soar. I had killed my cousin off in divers 
ghastly ways, the horror of each slaughter far tran- 
scending and o’ershadowing its predecessor, and 
had discovered, with blood-curdling reality, his 
scalped and mangled remains in no end of shocking 
attitudes, ere the sharpening ridge and the deep 
canyons approaching on either side, betrayed to me 
our proximity to The Narrows. In a few minutes 
I was riding down a gentle decline, a veritable scal- 
lop in the summit of the ridge, and, looking ahead, 
beheld the leading cattle beginning to string out 
in single file, over the thin backbone, two hundred 
yards ahead. To the right miles upon miles of the 
deep and rugged canyon of Deer Creek lay exposed 
to view, but Mill Creek’s gorge, to the left, was hid- 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


87 


den by the heavy timber of a bended ravine that 
led from a grassy swale that hugged close to the 
very crest of The Narrows. 

I tried to spur ahead in order to turn the leaders 
off the trail, as Tom had directed, but found on 
the left an impenetrable mat of buckbrush and 
manzanita, while to the right a gulch dropped off, 
a sheer precipice from the very edge of the trail. 
The trail itself offered my only avenue of advance, 
but this was full of cattle. When I finally crowd- 
ed through, on the heels of the band, however, I 
found that the leaders of their own accord had 
turned to the left, and were soon spreading out in 
good feeding order through the birch and service 
brush, where, with the tender shoots from these 
shrubs and the various species of forest grass, that 
had made a good growth since the last snows had 
melted, they managed to secure a tolerable break- 
fast. 

As I halted beside the trail, waiting for the last 
of the stragglers, my heart gave a bound, as I spied 
the sturdy form of my cousin, apparently un- 
scathed, and surely unscalped, riding beside Jose. 
In a moment I was by his side. Success and fail- 


88 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


ure was his report. He had found the missing ani- 
mal, a two-year-old heifer, but the Mill Creeks had 
forestalled him. In short, after examining the 
bloodstains in the trail, he had made a search and 
quickly found the carcass of the heifer lying some 
two hundred feet away in the heart of the chapar- 
ral, had made out that she had been shot fully a 
dozen times with arrows, and, after being dragged 
down, had been butchered with savage ingenuity, 
every pound of flesh and a portion of the viscera 
having been carried away, leaving only the bones 
and tattered hide to serve as a means of identifica- 
tion. But one or two tracks could be discovered in 
the thin soil, and these had been made by the bare 
foot of a large man. Further search revealed 
signs indicating that the marauders had passed 
westward into Mill Creek canyon. 

“I don’t believe they’ll tackle us,” continued 
Tom, on completing his tale of his morning’s ven- 
ture. “I’m satisfied, Fritz, that they were at their 
damned knifing job when you were there, and, of 
course, if they were they either saw you or heard 
you. What better chance could they expect to 
have for giving you a shot? They know our 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


89 


strength to a dot, and the fact that your saddle is 
still warm shows that there’s a small gang on this 
lay.” 

“Suppose they join a larger party in Mill Creek 
■and decide to follow us?” 

“Then our scalps may need cinching a little 
tighter.” This cheerful rejoinder was like Tom, 
yet, withal, I could not but feel a sense of relief 
upon learning of the apparent weakness of the 
“gang” that had shown such aptitude for snatching 
up stragglers from our drove. 

We nooned at a little spring which burst from 
the hillside close to the trail, and it was two o’clock 
before our long-horned steers began rising from 
their cool beds in the shaded glen above, where 
the entire band had camped upon leaving the feed- 
ing ground in birch. We contemplated stopping 
for the night at what Tom termed Summit Camp, 
in order that we might cross the belt of snow, 
which we knew lay just beyond, in the early morn- 
ing. About three miles above our noon stopping 
place the ridge began to grow steeper and more 
dreary. The birch, service and buckbrush took 
on a dwarfed appearance as compared with the 


90 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


same shrubs of the lower regions, the new shoots 
upon the ends of the limbs having scarcely begun 
to show their heads, fearful of the cold air in that 
high altitude. 

As we ascended, the more succulent species of 
shrubs dwindled away entirely, with the exception 
of the hardy huckhrush, while great patches of 
snowbrush, a shrub totally unfit for browse, began 
to appear scattered over the cold, grassless floor of 
the forest. The snow plant, too, began to peep up 
here and there, a bright red spot in the midst of 
dull surroundings, while occasionally we passed 
blotches of snow upon which the older cattle gazed 
with careless interest, but which the calves ap- 
proached and scrutinized with round-eyed wonder. 

It was dark by the time we reached our camping 
place, when, to our utter dismay, we found, in 
place of a strong corral, only a mass of charred 
logs. Sone one, either carelessly or purposely, 
had burned it. I doubtless looked my consterna- 
tion. J ose spat out a newly-lit cigarette and went 
stoically to work rolling another. Tom gave vent 
to curses, both “loud and deep.” What was to be 
done? The cattle were not tired and began al- 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


91 


ready to wander off toward the glistening streaks 
of snow that lay on all sides of us in the gloomy 
woods, made restless by the light, chilling air of 
evening. I was dog tired and felt that I would 
gladly surrender my claim to California and all her 
loose-jointed cow brutes for a hot supper and a 
comfortable bed. What did a man with a spark 
of common sense ever — . But my tenderfoot re- 
flections were cut short by Tom, who, after swear- 
ing himself out of breath, heaved a tremendous 
sigh, then, after a moment’s silence, broke out mer- 
rily as a lark: 

"Well, we’ll have to shove the brutes up against 
a snow bank, where we can hold them till morning, 
and he damned to them,” and he gave me a slap on 
the shoulder that nearly knocked me out of my 
saddle. 

"Better go slow,” I snarled savagely. "What 
d’y’ want to jolt a man’s head off for?” and for the 
moment I wondered how people could see anything 
jolly about my rude and boorish cousin. 

"Oh! I’ll get a sheep’s head for you when we 
get to Deer Creek Meadows,” replied Tom, chuck- 
ling with glee at my exhibition of temper. 


92 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


"Well, keep your hands off, or I’ll break your 
jaw!” I retorted, at which Tom absolutely roared 
with laughter, as he galloped off through the 
woods, to hunch the cattle, preparatory to driving 
up against an unbroken belt of snow. We 
advanced a half-mile before finding a place suitable 
for our purpose, by which time blackest night was 
upon us. Stumbling forward over the fallen tim- 
ber which covered the saggy earth, we at length 
got our discontented band into a sort of pocket in 
an immense bank, where, with a cold, glistening 
barrier on three sides, we allowed them to stop, 
purposing to build our fire in the middle of the 
fourth side. 

All hands, man and beast, were by this time 
cold, tired and hungry. I helped J ose unpack and 
then rode toward where the fragrant smell of a 
cigarette told me that my cousin was stationed. 
He now joined the Spaniard, and in a moment I 
heard a breaking of sticks, and was soon cheered 
by seeing a tiny flame flickering among the trees. 
This soon grew to a comfortable blaze, but an hour 
passed, during which I had to ride incessantly back 
and forth across the five hundred feet of boggy 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


93 


woods, shouting, whipping, hustling the shivering 
cattle back into their cold corner, ere Tom had 
finished his supper and come to relieve me. 

“Better curl up and go to sleep when you finish 
your fodder,” said my cousin, as he tossed me a 
heavy canvas coat. “Fll rouse you about mid- 
night.” 

I was thoroughly chilled, so hugged close to the 
smoking fire while eating, and on finishing my 
meal of hot bread, bacon and coffee, immediately 
began casting about for a comfortable bedroom. 
In order to keep the provisions off the snow-soaked 
ground Jose had placed the packs upon a log next 
the fire. There being no feed of any kind in the 
vicinity, the donkeys, together with the Spaniard’s 
saddle-horse, were tied to trees for the night. The 
Spaniard had taken his blankets and disappeared 
while I was eating. I determined to leave Jack 
saddled, as Tom said that he would keep warmer 
thus. 

After stumbling about for some time, trying to 
discover a dry spot on which to spread my bed, I at 
length gave up in despair, and, dropping down at 
the foot of a large pine, decided to roll myself in 


94 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


my blankets and sleep as best I could, sitting with 
my back against the tree trunk. Soon the fire 
simmered out, and, as I had by this time worked 
my blankets into an inextricable mass, in trying 
to get between them, I was compelled to go and 
coax it back to life, before I could straighten them. 
At length I managed to worm my way in among 
them in such a pleasing fashion that while my 
body received tolerable warmth my length pre- 
vented both my extremities from sharing this com- 
fortable state at the same time — first, my spurred 
and booted feet jutting out into the cold air, as I 
pulled the covers up about my ears; then my face 
and neck being bared, as I attempted to festoon 
a bachelor’s tuck about my heels. Crouching, 
with my shoulders cramped between two knotted 
excrescences that defaced the trunk of the pine, 
clutching Jack’s rein tightly in my icy hand, call- 
ing down maledictions upon the head of the man 
who invented the term “cowboy,” I 'at last fell into 
a troubled sleep. 

Oh, the blindness of frail humanity! Seldom 
cognizant of that indefinite state, popularly desig- 
nated “Well enough” — seldom satisfied with it 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


95 


when known! On going to sleep in that dark for- 
est, cold and fatigued, I felt that my fate was, in- 
deed, most miserable; in fact, the only satisfaction 
I remember to have derived from my situation was 
in the firm conviction that I was by long odds, 
the most wretchedly unfortunate creature on earth; 
yet before morning, I could look back upon that 
same forlorn bed with a longing heart, and think 
upon that knotted pine as a most enviable haven 
of rest. 

I had 'slept several hours — Hours? Minutes 
surely! — when I was dragged back to conscious- 
ness by a strong hand-grasp on my arm, and Tom’s 
voice in my ear. I sat upright, as best I could in 
my tangled blankets, wondering if it were morn- 
ing, but in a second a cold splash of water in my 
face left me startlingly wide awake. Rain was 
pouring down in torrents. 

“Guess you’d better get up and give us a lift,” 
said Tom, almost apologetically, though he, brave 
fellow, had been doing the work of two for half 
the night. “The cattle are trying to drift with 
the storm, and — I tried to hold ’em, but can’t. 
Old Buster’s about petered.” 


96 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


All thoughts of further sleep for that night were 
out of the question. I scrambled to my feet, shud- 
dering as the cold rain dashed against me, driven 
by the fierce wind which came howling off the ice- 
clad mountain to the east, and caught distinctly 
the sound of a shivering, long-drawn moan, and 
the restless clatter of cloven hoofs, telling, but too 
plainly, that the hand would scatter broadcast 
through the black forest, unless guarded with the 
strictest care. Tom remounted and passed on, 
calling back as he moved away: 

“You hold them on that side of the camp. Keep 
them bunched as much as possible, or they’ll” — 
but a furious blast swept the remainder of the sen- 
tence away on the bosom of the storm. I climbed 
stiffly into my cold, wet saddle, and began my first 
night’s experience as a cattle-guard. Back and 
forth, back and forth I rode, crowding the 
drenched creatures into their uninviting comer, 
only to find them turning about each time, with 
heads away from the storm, drifting, drifting out 
through the black, bleak woods. 

I did not speak with my cousin again during the 
night, though I heard his stentorian voice rising 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


97 


at times above the tempest, and, at last, when 
tardy daylight began to cast a pale, sickly light 
over the eastern sky, and I was ready to fall, in 
utter exhaustion, from my saddle, he drew rein 
beside me, and I noted, with surprise, that he no 
longer bestrode Buster, but was mounted upon 
Jose’s roan. 

“Buster was about to go under,” replied Tom to 
my anxious inquiry, “so I concluded I’d spell him. 
This fellow won’t have so much to do to-day as 
our plugs.” 

“I thought Jose was cranky about letting others 
ride his mustang?” 

It was just light enotigh to betray the signifi- 
cant grin that played over Tom’s strong features. 
“He imagined he was until I convinced him that 
this was not a good climate for cranks,” and turn- 
ing about, as he spoke, my cousin rode back to- 
ward the camp. 

The wind had slackened by this time, leaving 
the great, cold rain drops cutting straight down 
from the sky, and the tired cattle were beginning 
to lie down in the clumps cf baby firs, or next the 
roots of the larger pines. Ere broad daylight the 


98 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


rain had ceased entirely, though a few tattered 
clouds loitered across the sky until noon, and, 
after once getting a fire started, Jose soon had a 
steaming breakfast spread upon the friendly log 
which skirted the camp. I sat down, with my 
back to the log, and slept like the veritable sup- 
port against which I rested, until the meal was 
prepared, and felt immeasurably refreshed by my 
short nap. My cousin did not close an eye in 
sleep, yet, as the day wore on, I could not per- 
ceive the slightest token of fatigue in his ruddy 
face or muscular frame, in spite of his almost 
superhuman efforts the whole night through. 

It cost us a lively scrimmage before we prevailed 
upon our reluctant band to take the snow, our cus- 
tomary leaders, the long-legged steers, whose 
sunken flanks now betokened the hunger that was 
fastening upon them, utterly refusing to make a 
start, thus leaving us quite in the lurch, until old 
bull, who contemplated our fiercest onslaughts with 
imperturbable composure, came to the rescue by 
deliberately stalking on to the glistening crust, the 
entire band following gingerly at his heels. The 
night’s rain had played said havoc with the sur- 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


99 


face of the snow, softening it so that the heavier 
members of onr herd sunk to the fatiguing depth 
of six inches, thus rendering our passage ex- 
tremely difficult. All signs of the trails were bur- 
ied, but our self-selected file-leader plodded stead- 
ily forward, over the rolling banks, following the 
natural trend of the mountain, which Tom de- 
clared was a positive improvement on the traveled 
course. We expected trouble from the diminutive 
feet of our pack animals, but soon learned that the 
shrewd little beasts picked out, with unerring accu- 
racy, the firmer banks, and, withal, managed to 
keep “afloat” better than the clumsy bovines. 
Tom and I walked the entire breadth of snow, in 
order to give our mounts a respite, but Jose, true 
to the instincts of a lifelong vaquero, rode every 
step of the way. 

Upon nearing the summit, and, as we were be- 
ginning to congratulate ourselves upon a success- 
ful, though hard-earned passage, a calamity oc- 
curred, which somewhat dampened our spirits — 
though truly we needed dampening of no sort after 
the night’s experience. While tramping along, 
with Jack’s rein over my wrist, trying to keep to 


100 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


one side of the course cut into a slush by the feet 
of the cattle, and dragging the rim of my som- 
brero close down over my eyes, in order to shut 
off as much as possible, the dazzling glare from the 
sunlit snow, a sudden plunge and struggle drew 
my eyes to one side, where I beheld one of our 
largest steers struggling hard to regain his footing, 
having plunged through the thin crust that cov- 
ered a fallen log. As I approached, to render any 
necessary assistance, he made a tremendous effort 
and cleared the treacherous opening, only to sink 
down on the snow beyond. As he plunged for- 
ward one of his hind legs flung out loosely to one 
side, revealing the fact that the limb was fractured 
close to the hip. 

Tom now approached, and I read the loss of our 
best steer in his blanched face. 

“Have to feed him to the coyotes/’ he said, 
gravely, after a brief examination. “Even if we 
could splint his leg he’d starve before we could get 
him to feeding ground.” He paused, then in a 
moment, turned to me, his usually strong face 
working with emotion, and said, half-pleadingly, 
“You give him a shot, won’t you, Fritz? I can’t.” 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


101 


My heart went out in sympathy to my boisterous 
cousin, who, a giant in the midst of strength, was 
a child when confronted by weakness. A lump 
rose in my own throat, but I swallowed it forcibly 
and determined to do what was plainly a duty, real- 
izing that while it was a hard task for me it would 
be an impossible one for big-hearted Tom. For a 
moment my quaking heart prompted me to com- 
mission Jose to do the deed, but I put down the 
desire, feeling, somehow, that I was making a sac- 
rifice for my tender-hearted kinsman, and a sacri- 
fice by proxy were like one’s prescription taken by 
another. 

After the others had passed from sight, up the 
mountain, I crept into a clump of firs, whose tops 
protruded some feet above the snow, leveled my 
rifle at the broad forehead of the suffering ani- 
mal, pressed the trigger, and then, after one hor- 
ror-stricken glance at the quivering body, turned 
and staggered up the mountain, my limbs tottering 
with weakness. 

Ere I had overtaken my friends the top had 
been crossed, and the cattle were filing down a 
long slope beyond. The snow was deeper and 


102 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

firmer here, and in a half hour we were skirting 
Onion Creek, a small stream, hut one at present 
most difficult to cross, being bounded by jutting 
snow-banks, rising in no place less than ten feet 
straight up from the gurgling, ice-cold water. Our 
fears regarding the crossing were soon set at rest 
by old bull, who, with the nonchalance of a prac- 
ticed traveler, passed a short distance down the 
stream, and then, turning, stalked out upon a 
rounded bank, which proved to be a natural snow 
bridge, over which he led the entire band in safety. 

For many miles after this the descent was grad- 
ual. Our course lay through heavy pine timber, 
and the snow lingered on in almost unbroken bod- 
ies until we reached Round Valley — a little vale 
lying like a wide-open eye in the heart of the dense 
forest. After this we found the snow only in rag- 
ged patches. About four o’clock in the afternoon 
we found ourselves descending gradually into a 
great, broad canyon, which seemed, rather, to be 
creeping up to meet us. Soon we were next a bois- 
terous stream, fringed by dark thickets of slender 
tamaracks, betassled here and there by knots of 
rustling poplars, and in another half-mile a broad, 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


103 


mountain-encircled valley spread out, with arm to 
right and left before us, cool groves of tamaracks 
and clumps of pensive willows dotting its soft car- 
pet of verdant green — our summer’s home, Deer 
Creek Meadows. 















‘‘We beheld a tall, lithe figure advancing. 




MILL CREEKS 


PART V. 


MILL CREEKS. 

Alone in the forest, with the fresh, sweet breath 
of the pines, and the subdued murmuring among 
the myriad dark-green needles far up in their tops, 
playing upon the senses with strength just suffi- 
cient to accentuate the silence of early morning. 
No song of birds. No chirping of squirrel or chip- 
munk. The damp earth yet unwarmed by the 
spring sun. Nothing noisy or frivolous, all grand 
and solemn, a fit setting for the lordly forest trees. 

I had left camp early to ride along the bank of 
Deer Creek, and, after reaching the “lick,” a half- 
mile upstream, had turned my back upon the val- 
ley, and worked my way gradually up the mountain 
side to the east, drawn by the solitude, which 
made my heart expand with a strange yearning, 
as though suffocating in its narrow confines in the 
midst of so much that was sublime. Below me, 
skirting the base of the mountain on two sides, 
( 107 ) 


308 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


lay the verdant meadow lands — a smooth expanse 
of dark-green velvet, smiling in the morning sun- 
light, with the limpid stream, meandering across 
its bosom, now sparkling in crystal brightness, 
where it caught the slanting beams, now shaded 
to a deep black, as it crept under the pensive wil- 
lows that lined its banks, or beneath the denser 
shadow of the groves of tamarack. To my right 
lay that part of the meadow, which, starting north- 
ward to meet the larger stream, became lost in a 
tamarack swamp less than a mile above our camp; 
to my left stretched the longer arm of the valley, 
much of its grassy surface hidden from sight by 
the numerous groves. Directly opposite me was 
the low cleft in the encircling hills where the Las- 
sen Trail entered the valley, and from thence, 
borne on the stilled air of morning, came to my 
listening ear the distance-softened roar of tum- 
bling water, as it entered its sixty miles of wild 
canyon. 

At my feet a thin coil of smoke, playing above 
the treetops, indicated to me the position of our 
camp, while the picturesque knots of cattle, feed- 
ing in contentment upon the meadow here and 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


109 


there, filled my heart with a feeling of complete 
satisfaction. 

Hark! Suddenly a rifle booms, down somewhere 
in the swamp — once — twice — thrice, in quick suc- 
cession — and I wheel my horse just in time to 
catch the long-drawn shout of my cousin, as it 
mounts into the upper air from the clumped tama- 
racks a mile below. Even at that distance, I can- 
not mistake his stentorian voice, and I feel positive 
that he is signaling for me to join him. 

The mountain was steep, and Jack plowed deep 
furrows in the loose soil as he half-slid, half-scram- 
bled toward the bottom. In a few minutes I had 
reached the valley, crossed the creek, and was 
thrashing about through matted thickets of weak- 
stemmed tamaracks, swarms of mosquitoes, sing- 
ing about my head, roused up from the rank grass 
that grew in the soft and yielding ground under- 
foot. Soon I found myself in an almost inextrica- 
ble mass of tangled underbrush, while the taller 
trees, bent by the weight of winter snows until 
their tops touched the ground, formed veritable 
arches overhead, their luxuriant growth of foliage 
shutting out the daylight and leaving the stagnant 


110 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


pools, touched by the filtered rays, foreboding and 
gloomy beneath. 

I shouted to ascertain the whereabout of my 
cousin, and, after listening a moment, heard his 
answering whoop issuing from the depths of the 
swamp off on my left. An impenetrable thicket 
confronted me on that side. I essayed to pass 
round its border, and immediately found myself 
over a miry bog, covered with flattened limbs and 
tree- trunks. Jack was soon floundering helpless- 
ly, and to save him from sticking fast, I sprang 
from my saddle, attempting to gain a footing upon 
a bunch of prostrate saplings. The slender things 
sunk under my weight, however, excepting one, in- 
deed, which snapped asunder and shot a dried limb 
stinging into my face, and the next moment I 
was tottering to keep an upright posture, at the 
same time experiencing the delightful sensation 
of cold mud and slime oozing into my boot tops 
and creeping up my legs. Forty feet of this, and 
then came firmer footing. Again I shouted, but 
this time Tom’s reply came from my right. I had 
advanced in a curve. I ground my teeth together, 
and, changing my course, once more advanced. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


Ill 


The matted overgrowth opened — I gave a sigh of 
relief on catching sight of the blue sky — then 
closed again, and once more my course became 
doubtful. 

I at length halted, and was on the point of giv- 
ing vent to my disgust in a yell of fury, when I 
heard a crackling in the thicket ahead, and in a 
moment spied Tom, not fifty feet away, peering 
through the uncertain light in my direction. I 
picked my way toward him, still leading Jack by 
the rein, and growling out anathemas on the 
swamp and all its accessories, hut was stopped short 
by his unusually solemn: 

“For God’s sake, Fritz, draw in your horn!” 

His tone silenced me, and a moment later, on 
catching sight of the firm-set muscles of his stern 
visage, all thoughts of my peevish discontent were 
driven from my mind, while a chill of foreboding 
ill crept through me. 

“What’s up?” I asked, apprehensively, and Tom 
replied with suppressed excitement: 

“The Mill Creeks again!” 

“The Mill Creeks?” 

“Yes.” 


112 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

“How do you know ? What have they done ?” 

“Come here!” and he led the way toward a spot 
where the network of trees opened in a measure, 
overhead. Soon I spied Buster, standing with 
rein on the ground, and over beyond him beneath 
the low-drooping branches of a broad tamarack a 
prostrate object, huge and dark. Surely not a log! 
No! — there is blood — great pools of clotted gore — 
a whole side of naked ribs, bloody and grewsome — 
a shaggy head with long, curved horns. An- 
other minute and I was standing beside one of our 
best steers, half flayed and butchered. 

For a moment we gazed in silence on the stark 
carcass, then Tom muttered, with savage vehe- 
mence: 

“Ain’t this hell?” 

“WTien did they do it?” 

“Do it!” repeated my cousin, “they’ve done it 
since sundown yesterday.” 

“How do you know?” 

“By the blood and hide. Besides I’m dead sure 
I saw this fellow feeding down by camp last even- 
ing.” 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


113 


“How did they get him into this beastly 
swamp?” 

“It’s only fifty yards to the edge over there, and 
some of the cattle have been feeding up here every 
night. It’s warmer than on the open meadow.” 

Meantime I had walked around the body, and 
noted how the flesh had been hacked and torn from 
the side that lay uppermost, the under side being 
unmutilated and not even divested of the skin. 
The vast pools of blood had not yet been drunk by 
the moist earth, while the deep hoof-prints, where 
the huge creature had struggled and died, ap- 
peared so fresh that a feeling of imminent peril, 
for our own safety, gripped my heart. However, I 
succeeded in putting my boyish weakness into the 
background, where, by force of will, aided to an 
appreciable extent by the excitement of the day, 
I managed to keep it suppressed during the thrill- 
ing experiences that followed. 

“If we can once get Hi Good in their wake, they’ll 
quit the beef business till he gets through shoot- 
ing, at least,” said Tom, fiercely, and, remembering 
the many stories I heard of Good’s prowess, my 
blood grew decidedly warmer. Of course, we must 


114 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

enlist the services of Hi Good. Had we not ven- 
tured into this remote mountain region, only on 
feeling assured that the famous Indian fighter was 
to be our neighbor? 

In a few minutes I was left alone in the swamp, 
while Tom rode away in search of the sheepman. 
My manhood had, by this time, so far mastered 
my fear, that, after burying Jack in a thicket of 
small trees, and posting myself in a well-protected 
ambuscade, with the carcass of the slaughtered 
steed in full view, 1 managed, with creditable cool- 
ness, to dispatch divers redskins as they advanced, 
in my imagination, toward the dead animal from 
every conceivable recess of the surrounding marsh, 
only succeeding in giving myself a realistic start 
on locating each new point of debauchment for an 
unkempt, slinking savage. 

I had been thus laudibly engaged for upward of 
an hour, and my senses were beginning to tire of 
their monotonous environments, when a crackling 
in the swamp set me on the alert. In a moment I 
saw Tom approaching alone. He had ridden to 
Good’s camp, and found no one there but a stolid- 
faced Indian boy. This lad, so my cousin assured 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


115 


me, could speak English fairly well when he chose, 
hut, on the present occasion, could scarcely he 
made to give a single intelligible answer to Tom’s 
anxious queries. At length, after my cousin had 
ridden a mile up the valley to where the captain’s 
sheep were feeding on the meadow’s edge, and, dis- 
appointed in his quest, had returned to the cabin, 
the stupid Indian had managed to blurt out that 
his master had gone to Big Meadows, and would 
not return until night. We were consequently 
thrown upon our own resources, for twenty-four 
hours would kill a Mill Creek’s trail even to the 
acute senses of Hi Good. 

Tom, grim-visaged and determined, was for fol- 
lowing the trail as best we could, in the hopes of 
overtaking the marauders and giving them a taste 
of lead. I demurred, arguing that we would run 
the unpleasant risk of rushing into an ambush; 
but Tom contended that the renegades never em- 
ployed this method of destroying their pursuers, 
since some of their brethren, now among the ma- 
jority, had tried the trick on Hi Good, but in- 
stead lent every energy to the task of reaching 
their stronghold in Mill Creek Canyon, as soon as 


116 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

possible after committing any depredation. The 
accounts of the treacherous cutthroats substan- 
tiated in general my cousin’s opinion, but this day 
they did take advantage of the inefficiency of their 
pursuers, as we learned to our cost. 

Tom soon carried his point, and we started. We 
experienced, at first, much difficulty in following 
the trail, and it was high noon ere we emerged 
from the swamp, and entered the heavy timber on 
the mountain side to the northwest. Here it be- 
came evident that the Indians had made no at- 
tempt to conceal their tracks, for we found the 
evidences of their passage clear and fresh, and set 
out, at good speed, in pursuit, both lacking the ex- 
perience, which would have taught us to appre- 
hend an Indian trick in every plain sign that met 
our eyes. 

Otf toward the north, skirting the foot of the 
mountain and keeping a mile or more from the 
creek we advanced, maintaining a vigilant eye on 
the wood about us, and dismounting only now and 
then to scan more closely the steep mountain-side, 
as the tracks disappeared on some rocky point, or 
became lost in the spongy surface, afforded by 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


117 


broad beds of “Squaw Carpet.” Tom rode ahead, 
bending every energy to the task of following the 
trail with all dispatch, while I followed close be- 
hind, my Winchester unslung, and my eyes and 
ears strained to the point of keenest observation. 
No sounds startled me, but a score of times my 
excited vision construed some burnt snag, some 
jagged rock, or shaded opening between bush and 
bowlder into the outline of a crouching savage. 

For several hours we advanced with tolerable 
speed, leaving the meadows behind and passing 
farther and farther into the somber forest, hold- 
ing to the broad depression in the hills, through 
which Deer Creek found its boisterous way. At 
length, when the shadows were beginning to grow 
long, the trail took an abrupt turn to the right, led 
us down the slope of a flat-topped ridge toward 
the creek, and, when within twenty rods of the 
stream, faded entirely from sight. Long and dili- 
gently we searched, employing every tracking de- 
vice that we had ever practiced or heard of, but all 
in vain, and, at last, filled with the uncomfortable 
conviction that we had been deliberately tricked, 
we turned our horses 5 heads toward camp. 


118 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


Urged by the suppressed excitement within us, 
we struck forward at a stiff gallop, my perturbation 
heightened by the unusually grim silence main- 
tained by my companion. In an hour’s time we 
reached the swamp at the valley’s edge, and caught 
the last rays from the sun, just sinking behind the 
domelike mountain, which flanked the meadow on 
the west. Our horses were nearly blown, but we 
gave them no respite. Through the dense tama- 
racks, avoiding the gloomy bogs, past the clumps 
of willows, from whose stagnant pools the hoarse 
croak of the marsh frog gave welcome to coming 
night — out upon the open meadow, with the tim- 
bered camp a mile ahead. Groups of cattle were 
feeding toward the snug groves, which dotted the 
lowland, where their night beds lay, no sign of dis- 
quietude in their midst. My eyes instinctively 
sought the camp, the germ of uneasiness in my 
heart springing into foreboding, full grown, at the 
first glance. There was no fire, no motion, no sign 
of life. I tried to remark unconcernedly that Jose 
must be fishing later than usual, but my throat 
was dry, and gave out no sound. A stolen glance 
at my cousin seemed to set the seal of reality to 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


119 


my fancied fears. He was staring straight ahead 
at the camp with a look of weird intentness. Jack 
sought to slacken his pace, hut I gave him the 
spur. Tom’s heels were never out of Buster’s 
flanks. Through a strip of watery ground, the 
galloping hoofs coming down with sharp, pistol- 
like reports, on to the firmer sod beyond, the sounds 
becoming muffled, as though sinking into the 
spongy earth, and into the very camp, our horses 
sliding to their haunches in the sudden, plung- 
ing halt. There under the big tamarack was the 
canvas tent, erect and taut. There the rude table, 
the blackened camp fire, the sturdy Dutch oven, 
the coffee-pot, the carefully guarded saddle-hags 
and grub sacks. All right? Ho — thrown down 
and empty — blotches of flour sprinkled about, and 
there — Great Heavens! my cousin and I sprang to 
the ground and started toward a prostrate human 
form, and at that instant both horses surged back- 
ward with piercing snorts of terror. The next mo- 
ment, with exclamations of horror, we were re- 
coiling from the cold, dead body of Jose, lying 
with upturned face and ghastly wide-open eyes a 
few paces from the door of the tent. 


120 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

For a moment we stood, petrified with horror, 
the abruptness with which we were brought face 
to face with grisly tragedy seeming to render our 
previous premonitions of ill mere pleasurable an- 
ticipations. This was so different — so real — that, 
after the first sickening shock, we seemed to he 
stunned past the point of awe. I was not the 
least surprised, after an interval, to hear Tom re- 
mark, with distinct calmness: 

“Well, old Greaser’s got his dose!” nor appalled 
to see him lean over and lay his hand on the hid- 
eous face. I could not take my eyes off the gap- 
ing mouth, nevertheless, I stepped forward 
promptly, and laid hold of a stiffened arm in re- 
sponse to Tom’s direction, but was stopped short 
by a deep, authoritative voice at some distance 
crying out sharply: 

“Hold on! let him alone!” 

Springing back, and wheeling about at this start- 
ling interruption, we beheld a tall, lithe figure ad- 
vancing, almost at a run, from a knot of tama- 
racks by the creek bank, and with the first glance 
an exclamation of relief broke from Tom, and I 
heard him murmur fervently: 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


121 


“Hi Good!” 

What a crushing weight was lifted from my 
heart on hearing that name! With long strides the 
man approached, and as he neared us, I saw his 
piercing black eyes darting rapidly over the camp, 
embracing everything in their comprehensive 
glance, excepting my cousin and I. They seemed 
to read us without, for an instant, resting upon us. 
Walking stoaight up to the dead body, he vouch- 
safed but one ^hort interrogatory, turning for the 
moment toward Tom. 

“Cold?” and Tom replied with like brevity: 

“Yes.” 

Without further words he stooped and examined 
the body, running his hand roughly over breast 
and limbs, feeling of the throat and skull, and, 
lifting a hand and letting it fall again with a 
smart thud; then, after scanning the ground close- 
ly, he took hold of one shoulder, and, with a sud- 
den jerk, rolled the body over. One keen glance 
at the blood-stained clothing and at the spot of 
crimson where the corpse had lain, and then he re- 
marked, grimly: 


122 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 

"There you are! I thought so — shot in the 
back!” 

All the time he had kept hold of his rifle, shift- 
ing it from hand to hand, as necessity required, 
with a familiarity that might lead one to believe 
that the weapon was never out of his grasp. He 
now questioned us respecting our movements dur- 
ing the day, and, after gaining such information 
as he seemed to desire, advised — nay, commanded 
— us to stake our horses while he picked up the 
trail. The movements of this strange, remarka- 
ble man held me with a sort of fascination, and I 
hastened to Jack’s side and began unsaddling him, 
anxious to watch his every step, while he discov- 
ered signs of J ose’s treacherous murderers, for that 
he would succeed in doing so I never for a moment 
doubted. 

My confidence was not unfounded, for before I 
could drive Jack’s picket pin, with feverish haste, 
on fresh feeding ground, the sheep-man had struck 
the trail, and was following it westwardly toward 
the heavy timber at the foot of the mountain. 
After advancing in a slightly zigzag course for a 
few rods he returned swiftly to the camp, and, 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


123 


glancing anxiously at the fading light in the west- 
ern sky, said hesitatingly: 

“If you boys are hungry you’d better go to my 
shack and get a bite. Your camp seems to be 
strapped.” 

“What’ll you do?” asked Tom, brusquely, noting 
the other pause. 

“Me? I guess I’ll follow the trail out to the hill 
and see what turns up.” 

Tom promptly volunteered to go along, declar- 
ing that we were not a bit hungry, which state- 
ment, as far as I was concerned, was absolutely 
true, for I could as easily have devoured a yearling 
steer at one sitting as I could have swallowed a 
mouthful, and I could have done either more easily 
than I could have remained alone in camp, with 
that grewsome object lying in front of the tent. 

In a few minutes we were across the strip of 
meadowland, and in the timber at the foot of the 
mountain. Good moved ahead, and, though 
guided entirely by the sign under foot, advanced 
with unusual speed, at the same time devouring 
with hungry eyes every object about him. Turn- 
ing to the left we were soon headed toward the 


124 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

point where Deer Creek left the meadows. When 
close to the spot where the stream approached the 
mountain he hesitated, stopped, and then began 
working his way carefully back and forth over a 
course, perhaps fifty feet broad, at the same time 
telling us in guarded tones to keep back. Many 
minutes we stood in tense excitement, watching the 
mysterious woodman gliding from point to point, 
scrutinizing brush and rocks and ground, occa- 
sionally dropping to his knees to scan twigs or 
shrubs and frequently muttering indistinctly to 
himself. Once he moved down the hill, examined 
the loose soil beneath a broad-limbed fir, and, as he 
rose to his feet, I heard him utter a bitter curse. 

At length a grunt of satisfaction broke from 
him, and, after a few long strides up the hillside, 
he called back to us, from behind a knot of sap- 
lings which screened him from our sight, “Come 
on, boys!” We sprang forward at his words, but, 
on reaching the saplings spied his tall figure glid- 
ing rapidly ahead along the side of the mountain, 
necessitating some lively sprinting, on our part, 
before we overtook him. 

The trail seemed to offer no difficulties, now, and 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


125 


we advanced for upward of a mile, without further 
pause. In spite of the remarkable swiftness of our 
leader’s movements, the gloom of early night was, 
by this time, closing in upon the silent forest. The 
creeping darkness acted as a spur to Good’s en- 
deavors. He redoubled his speed, and finally, just 
as I was beginning to entertain fears that all my 
boasted powers as a college athlete would prove 
of no avail in keeping me at his heels, he again 
came to a halt, and, after a moment’s hesitation, 
began darting back and forth once more, with the 
eagerness of a baffled hound, though this time> to 
my surprise, maintaining absolute silence. 

Scarcely a half-minute he pressed the search, 
swerving but once or twice up or down the hill, 
when suddenly he stopped short, his sinewy form 
snapping up to an erect posture, his long arm 
thrown out toward us with an impressive gesture 
for silence. Fascinated by his magnificent form 
and bearing, I stood with eyes riveted upon him, 
oblivious to everything else. Then, all at once, I 
thrilled with new excitement, as low, yet distinct 
above the muffled bellow of the stream on our 
left, was heard the muttering of strange, guttural 


126 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


voices. Several broken, and, to me, unintelligible 
words were spoken, as though in guarded tones, 
and coming from a spot directly between us and 
the creek, followed by a moment of silence. Then 
a sharp, uncanny, animal-like cry broke abruptly 
on the air, so close to us that it seemed at our very 
elbows, and we knew that we were discovered. 

A fierce imprecation, like the snarl of a savage 
beast, broke from Good, and, bounding down the 
hill, he yelled: 

“Let ’em have it, fellows! Let ’em have it! 
They’ll be scattered plumb to hell in a holy min- 
ute!” 

Actuated by the intense excitement of the min- 
ute, I lost all thought of Tom, and dashed wildly 
down the hill. I crashed through a clump of 
small trees, hearing startled cries and swiftly-mov- 
ing bodies scuttling through the undergrowth be- 
fore me. Then came a blinding glare, lighting up 
the gloomy dusk, and with it a sharp, deadly re- 
port, a shout of ferocious triumph, and a blood- 
curdling scream of pain. The next minute I was 
running toward the creek, the fleeing figures having 
taken that direction, but had gone only a few 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


127 


steps when a shout arose in the thicket on my 
right, followed by a sharp blow, a heavy fall, an- 
other shout, and then came sounds of a violent 
struggle. Plunging frantically through the brake, 
I nearly tumbled against two forms, w T rithing in 
desperate embrace, both in an upright attitude, 
one tall and slender, the other short and sturdy, 
For a moment they swayed back and forth, then 
there was a sudden rush, a tremendous lunge, a 
quick forward spring, and the tall form was tilted 
in air and hurled furiously among the saplings ten 
feet away. Tom’s muscles were in action. The 
tall man lay for a second where he went down, and 
during that second another rifle shot roared out, 
still nearer the stream. I saw Tom snatch at his 
rifle, which he had evidently dropped on encoun- 
tering the Indian, and then I was attracted again 
to the crackling saplings where the latter had fal- 
len. As he gave a sudden twist, landed catlike 
upon his hands and feet and shot, a veritable black 
streak, through the thicket, I flung my rifle for- 
ward and fired, then sprang forward in headlong 
pursuit. In a few yards I was beside Good, and at 
that instant I caught a glimpse of the Indian, 


128 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 

scudding across an open spot among the clumps of 
trees. He was headed toward the stream, which 
seemed to be close at hand. Good jerked his rifle 
to his shoulder, but the savage was gone with the 
wink of an eye, and, lowering the weapon with a 
growl, he ran forward, straight at the stream. I 
followed. Ten steps brought us in sight of the 
surging water, at the same time revealing the fact 
that we were separated from the flying Indian by a 
dense mass of partially fallen tamaracks, which ex- 
tended to the very bank. The top of a prostrate 
pine protruded past this barrier on the farther 
side, and by an almost instinctive calculation, I 
realized that the trunk must span the creek. Then 
thoughts of the steep banks flashed through my 
mind, and I knew that the Indian was seeking this 
mode of crossing. Good must have arrived at the 
same conclusion, but his keener eyes had told him 
more. Instead of attempting to pass round the 
tamaracks so as to bring the Mill Creek in view, 
he dropped quickly to his knee and thrust his rifle 
forward, apparently into the very mat of trees. I 
followed his example, and through the chinklike 
interstices, between the lower trunks of the bent 


AD VENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


129 


saplings, caught a distinct view of the great, bare 
log stretching across the chasm that yawned be- 
tween the black banks. The upper surface of the 
log was above our line of vision, except that part 
from about the middle of the stream on, and to- 
ward that portion the grim rifle barrel was pointed. 
We heard a sharp rustle directly ahead of us, and 
my heart seemed to stand still with awed excite- 
ment. A light spring — the snapping of a dried 
limb — a stealthy pat! pat! on the top of the log, 
then a foot and ankle appeared — another foot, with 
half the lower leg, moving carefully, yet swiftly, 
along the smooth trunk, and then came the blind- 
ing flash of Good’s rifle, and as the angry report 
re-echoed from the darkening sides of the canyon, 
a piteous cry and heavy plunge in the water took 
oath to the terrible accuracy of the white man’s 
aim. In a second we were on our feet and running 
around to the farther side of the clumped tama- 
racks. Passing the top of the fallen pine my foot 
slipped, and I stumbled over an outstretched form, 
lifeless, but warm and limp. It was the body of 
the Indian who had fallen at Good’s first shot. At 
another time the bare thought of tripping over a 


130 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

corpse would have made my blood run cold, but 
now I felt naught but annoyance at being impeded 
in my progress. Scrambling to my feet and 
thrashing through the brake, which lined the 
stream in almost unbroken belts, I clutched a 
branch and leaning far over the bank, glanced 
quickly over the tumbling waters, first opposite me, 
then under the farther bank, seeing nothing; then 
my eyes swept down the stream, and I beheld a 
black head just breaking above the surface. Mak- 
ing more accurate estimation of the velocity of the 
current, Good had plunged into the brake farther 
down the stream, and must have come out directly 
opposite the struggling wretch in the water, for in 
the very instant that the head appeared, and while 
the swarthy visage was turned directly toward me, 
the deadly rifle belched forth once more its volume 
of flame, and J ose’s murder was doubly avenged. 






*‘I suddenly found the clinging arms of the girl 
wound about mj neck.” 



A 

MIDNIGHT MYSTERY 



PART VI. 


A MIDNIGHT MYSTERY. 

“What's that?” 

“What's what?” 

“Sounds like a horse!” 

“Where?” 

“Out on the plains!” 

“Guess you're dreaming!” 

“Your hearing must be growing short!” 

“Your imagination is growing long!” 

“Well, I'll bet it's a horse, all right!” 

“Bah!” 

“I'm going to listen.” 

“I'm going to sleep.” 

So saying my cousin Tom stretched himself rest- 
lessly on his blankets and became silent. Follow- 
ing tardily on the heels of the scorching Septem- 
ber day, the night was hot and sultry. After 
twenty-five miles of torture, across the dazzling, 
blistering stretch of foothills, we had reached the 
( 133 ) 


184 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


valley, just as the sun, a copper monster, slid his 
murderous face behind the murky outline of the 
Coast Range, and with lagging pace had urged our 
little bunch of beef cattle across the barren plain. 
In the dreary gloom we had drawn near the silent 
corral, coiled like the ghost of a huge snake on the 
side of a bare slope, and with signs of relief had 
beheld the thin-flanked steers go clattering into 
the hollow, to slake their thirst at the stagnant 
pools in the bottom. Failing to make Pettit’s 
place, we had sought this spot, a winter sheep- 
camp, in the open plain, several miles north of 
Deer Creek. 

Refreshed, in a measure, by the tepid water, but 
without food of any kind, we had turned our horses 
loose in the corral among the cattle, and had then 
proceeded to moisten our chapped lips with eager 
draughts of coffee, having unslung pack and rid- 
ing outfit beside the lonely, summer-warped cabin. 

To one accustomed to the refreshing air of the 
mountains, what is the summer night in the Sacra- 
mento valley but torment unspeakable! We spread 
our blankets on the level plain, some distance away 
from the cabin, so that should any stray waif of 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


135 


a breeze come creeping along the valley we would 
be in a position to fill onr panting lungs. But no 
breeze came. Never before was I in a place of 
such utter desolation. No trees, whispering their 
good -night lullabies; no murmuring of running 
water; no whistle of night-bird; no croak of frog, 
and not even the rustle of a blade of grass. The 
staccato squeak of the cricket, heard at dismal in- 
tervals, served only to accent the oppressive silence. 
Occasionally a stir over in the corral, caught my 
ear, or a long-drawn breath, as some gasping steer 
filled his capacious lungs; while my nostrils contin- 
ually drank in the faint sweet odor of tarweed, 
which loaded the close, suffocating air. 

The pulseless atmosphere, the uncanny silence, 
the solitude, the dead stars, staring from the leaden 
sky, all combined to lend an air of unearthly wierd- 
ness to the hot plain. What wonder that I lis- 
tened with strained ears to catch again the sound 
of galloping hoofs that had startled me? It was 
midnight, but I had not yet closed an eye in sleep. 
I arose, and, in my stocking feet, walked out upon 
the plain. The night was dark. Off to my right, 
a streak of faint gray sky told me that the moon 
would soon be in sight. 


136 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


I stood for some time, listening for a repetition 
of the hoof-beats, for I was certain that I had not 
been deceived. Hearing nothing, I was about to 
turn back toward the cabin, when I bethought me 
of placing my ear next the ground. I had dropped 
to my knees in execution of this design, when in- 
distinctly I once more heard the deadened thud 
of a horse’s feet. A few faint foot-falls — then 
silence. Then, after a moment of anxious listen- 
ing, I again heard the sounds, gradually growing 
louder, as though advancing out of a depression 
on the plain. In a moment I could readily make 
out that the sounds were north of me, but whether 
approaching or receding I could not tell. What 
could bring a rider to that desolate plain at mid- 
night? This thought was taking vague form in my 
mind, when suddenly a low tremulous moan crept 
through the darkness, growing gradually louder 
and terminating in a scream of terror. It began 
like a cry of a child. It ended like the agonized 
scream of a woman. I stood appalled, while the 
wild cry died away on the echoless air. Then my 
blood was set tingling with dismayed excitement, 
as a man’s voice, deep and harsh, smote my ear. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


135 


The voices came from the direction of the gallop- 
ing hoofs. Filled with the impulse to act, I 
wheeled about and ran toward the cabin, only to 
find my cousin standing in bewilderment by his 
bed. 

“What's the racket?" he asked, confusedly, but 
I made no answer, for, ere a reply could reach my 
lips, another piercing cry broke on the night, 
sounding farther away than had the first. The 
galloping horse was evidently receding. 

“A woman!" cried Tom, then, as still another 
scream reached us, he added excitedly: “She's be- 
ing murdered, Fritz! Let's go help!" and he jerked 
on his heavy boots, snatched up hat and pistol 
belt and started. I was on the ground, tugging at 
my own boots, but stopped him as he dashed past. 

“Hold on! Get your bronco. They're horse- 
back!" 

Turning about, he ran over to where we had un- 
packed, and the next minute was flinging saddles, 
grub sacks and cooking implements about, in eager 
search for a bridle or hackamore, swearing like a 
fiend with every breath. Scrambling to my feet, 
hatless and with no upper garment, excepting my 


138 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

•undershirt, I joined him. He soon laid hold of a 
bridle, I of a cotton pack rope, and in a minute, 
regardless of the stifling heat, we were running 
through the hollow, toward the corral, our heavy 
spurs, which night and day were left buckled to our 
boot heels, making an uncanny jingle in the heavy 
air. 

Both our horses were stretched out in restless 
sleep among the panting steers, but we unceremo- 
niously roused them, and springing on their backs 
galloped out of the enclosure toward the cabin. 
Reaching it side by side, we whirled ourselves to 
the ground. 

“Which is yours?” growled Tom, fumbling at 
the saddles. Without waiting for a reply, he seized 
the one nearest him, tossed it upon Buster, and, 
with the same breath, was jerking vigorously up- 
on the latigo. I threw the other upon Jack, has- 
tily adjusted it, and we mounted and were off. 

Hungry and weary, our animals might well have 
thought themselves ridden by fiends incarnate, as 
they felt the merciless steel in their flanks, yet they 
responded promptly, and we went tearing out into 
the night like spirits of the black tornado. Down 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


139 


a gentle dip, across the ragged ravine at its bot- 
tom, and up the succeeding rise. On *top we 
stopped abruptly and listened — no sound, save the 
quick breathing of our horses, and the familiar 
squeak of saddle leather. Again we bounded for- 
ward. The plain was level now, and we rode for 
a quarter of a mile before making another halt. 
Still no sound of the galloping hoofs — no guiding 
outcry. We spurred ahead, stopping frequently to 
listen, but the silence remained unbroken except- 
ing for our own thundering tread and heavy 
breathing. 

We began to grow puzzled — perhaps the mid- 
night rider had heard us, turned aside and let us 
pass. The darkness made it possible. With this 
thought I became conscious of a growing impres- 
sion that the night had become a shade lighter. 
I glanced over my shoulder, and through the 
smoky atmosphere beheld the moon, like the great, 
bloodshot eye of a ghoul, staring at us over the 
black range to the east. Its light seemed to add 
gloom to the night. We pushed on for a mile. 
Silence still. It was strange. We had ridden at 
top speed, while the darkness precluded the possi- 


140 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

bility of our having given an alarm before start- 
ing. Yet, unalarmed, what steed, short of a phan- 
tom, could have distanced us and swept entirely 
out of hearing? The thought was an uncomforta- 
ble one. Were phantoms ever known to scream? 
My mind was cleared of these unwholesome re- 
flections by Tom’s suggesting that we separate and 
advance in parallel lines, so as to cover more 
ground. 

The heat was already telling on our horses. I 
swung off to the right, beginning, as the excite- 
ment of the chase waned, to feel an oppressive 
sense of my own discomfiture. Drawing rein in 
a few minutes, I listened in vain for some sound 
from my cousin. Buster could not be far away, 
and I had reason to believe that he was hitting the 
ground hard, yet not the faintest sound reached 
me. Perhaps, then, the other horse was not so far 
from us as we had thought. I was on the point 
of hailing my cousin, but thought better of it, and, 
instead, veered off a point to the left, thinking 
that I might have gone too far out of our former 
course. 

However, I kept my face to the north, and held 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


141 


Jack to his pace, well aware that it was my only 
means of keeping even with Tom, for, no easy 
horseman at any time, my cousin rode like the very 
devil under the stress of the night's excitement. 
I must have covered several miles without sound 
or signal from Tom, and with no indication of 
that for which we searched. I began to feel that 
I was utterly alone on that dreary waste. 

The moon had, by this time, mounted high 
enough to lend a dim shimmer to the night. 
Through its sickly light I at last perceived a series 
of dark blotches ahead, like distant headlands ris- 
ing from the mist of the sea. They multiplied, 
grew larger, fused with one another, end, at length, 
welded themselves into a ragged line across my 
course. A little farther and I found myself on a 
broken, cliff-like bank, with the plain, sweeping 
on in apparently unbroken stretch, at my feet. 

How high the bank was there was not sufficient 
light to determine, so J dismounted and felt about 
on the ground for some missile, that I might toss 
it over and measure the fall. I groped about for 
a moment in fruitless search, then, disappointed, 
dropped to my knees, and began sweeping my 


142 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


hands about in broadening arcs. While thus 
stooped, all at once I heard distinctly the sound of 
suppressed sobbing. I held my breath to listen. 
The sounds came from the plain below me. Be- 
fore I could rise to an erect position, the click of a 
horse’s feet caught my ear, and, straining my eyes, 
I perceived, the next minute, a dim object glide 
across my line of vision. Like a phantom it ap- 
peared. Like a phantom it vanished. The sounds 
of the walking horse, however, continued, growing 
fainter each second. I seemed to make no note 
of the foot-beats, but the sobs clung to my brain. 

Once more did the heat and the fatigue take 
wings and fly. I flung myself into my saddle, and, 
turning to the left, galloped along the brow of 
the bank, hoping to find a break where it melted 
into the plain below. Fifty yards! One hundred 
yards! Yet no breach, and, in desperation, I turned 
and rode straight at the dark barrier. A wild 
vault, a violent plunge, a scrambling tumble, a 
rise, and I found myself on smooth ground, with 
Jack, firm and supple, under me. 

Launching forth on the plain, I heard Tom’s 
shout, and in a minute was riding beside him. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


148 


“What the devil — ■” he began, then recognizing 
me, added: “Did yonr horse fall?” 

I told him, then acquainted him with what I 
had heard and seen. “The horse was walking as 
long as I could hear it,” I explained. 

“Then we’ll go easy, and maybe we can make a 
sneak.” 

Accordingly we rode at a soft lope for several 
hundred yards, bending low on our horses’ necks, 
so as to command the plain as far as possible, and 
straining our ears to listen. However, our precau- 
tion was in vain, and, after a half-mile or so with 
no sign of success, we began to use the spur. 

Thus onward, mile after mile, through the 
sweltering night, we galloped. Once we both 
heard distinctly the sound of a stifled cry, seem- 
ingly directly ahead of us, but try as we might, 
we could not catch sight again of the flittering 
object I had seen. The entire adventure, thus far, 
was fraught with such weird mystery that a feeling 
of awe was beginning to fasten upon my mind, 
threatening to grow in intensity unless interrupted 
by some diverting circumstance. 

At length it was interrupted by the appearance, 


144 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 

vague and mist-like at first, but gradually assum- 
ing definite outline, and taking distinct shading, of 
a dark belt, spanning the midnight horizon before 
us. It grew rapidly plainer, and we soon recog- 
nized it as timber. Tom said it could be nothing 
less than the wooded bottom of Mill Creek, and 
added that for a long stretch below the foothills 
it spread out, fully three miles in breadth, and was 
so dense as to be a veritable jungle of oak, grape- 
vine and underbrush. 

"We must be aiming right for the thickest part,” 
said my cousin in a tone of perplexity, “And 
what the deuce any mortal would be heading here 
for would stump Old Harry himself. Hold on! 
By Jingo, I remember hearing some of the boys 
saying there is a trail leading to the creek, from 
somewhere on this side.” 

“Should think this God-forsaken bottom would 
be just the spot for a fellow who wanted to hide. 
Gad! It gives me gooseflesh!” 

“It’s the best place on earth. If we can only 
strike that trail we’ll go it a rub if we get skinned.” 
Tom spoke almost in whispers, for we were now 
close to the gloomy wall of wood, stretching in for- 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


145 


bidding silence across our path. Giving our horses 
the rein, we silently advanced. The animals had 
slackened their pace to a walk, and, pressing slight- 
ly to one side, unhesitatingly drew nearer the black 
shadows. As the upper masses of foliage began 
to close in, like sable clouds, above our heads, Tom 
spurred past me, unslinging his rifle as he did so. 
I followed his example. Soon we were swallowed 
up in almost absolute darkness. The close under- 
brush swept our sides, while the dense growth over- 
head often shut out the scanty light from the sky 
above; but the prompt, though devious advance of 
our horses proved that we had, without doubt, hit 
upon the trail. 

We must have pushed for a mile into this black 
labyrinth, the tangled overgrowth seeming to be- 
come closer and hotter with every step, then, with- 
out a premonitory break in the wood, we found 
ourselves, all at once, free from its smothering 
cover, though still environed by its black border. 
We detected a faint sound of running water, so dis- 
tant as to be at intervals inaudible, and knew that 
we must be in an open spot not far from Mill 
Creek. 


146 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

"Look there !” exclaimed Tom, stopping short. 
As he spoke, a broad band of light suddenly flashed 
through the darkness before us, shone for an in- 
stant — a long, white streak across the opening, 
even lighting up the somber tree trunks at the 
edge of the wood, then was gone. A door had 
evidently opened and closed. 

"A house!” we whispered together. The thought 
was a startling one to me, for I had not dreamed 
of finding a human habitation in that dismal spot. 
We held a whispered consultation, and quickly de- 
cided to dismount, tie our horses, and stealthily 
approach the building, hoping that we might dis- 
cover some solution of the terrified cries that had 
brought us so far. 

We unbuckled our spurs and tied them to our 
saddles so as to be rid of their everlasting jingle, 
then, with rifles in hand, started cautiously toward 
the spot from which the beam of light seemed to 
emanate. Inside of twenty feet we walked, full 
tilt, into a barb- wire fence. Scrambling through 
we found ourselves on uneven ground, dried weeds 
or the stalks of some low shrub rattling against 
our legs as we walked. Noting the constantly re- 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


147 


curring depressions, I thought of plowed ground, 
and hastily concluded that we were in an old 
garden. 

Soon we reached another wire fence, and, as I 
felt a barh sting my hand, a meager ray of light 
caught my eye, evidently close before us. Creep- 
ing under the lower wire, we crawled forward, on 
hands and knees, and soon were able to discern 
the regular outline of a house. The narrow beam 
of light seemed to come from a window, and was a 
good five feet from the ground. 

Feeling our way with the utmost caution, we 
wormed ourselves, inch by inch, toward the build- 
ing, stopping many times to listen. At length I 
could reach out my hands and touch the wall of 
the house. Drawing under the scar of light, we 
raised ourselves breathlessly to our feet. The win- 
dow was closed, and shaded from within by a torn 
curtain, leaving a space scarcely four inches broad 
at the lower edge, and through this space we got 
a distinct view of the interior. At first the bright 
light was too much for our eyes, accustomed to the 
darkness, but in a moment they had become 


148 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 

adapted to the change, and we were staring spell- 
bound at the scene within. 

It was a long room, with hare floor and wall, 
rude but not untidy. Opposite us was a gaping 
fireplace, whose mantel-piece, a single, smoke- 
stained board, supported the lamp which gave light 
to the room, and beside it an open door, leading 
into a darkened room beyond. Beside a rough, 
wooden bed, in the end of the room, nearest me, 
crouched the form of a girl, with face hidden in 
her hands, and long, disheveled hair covering her 
shoulders. To the right, near the middle of the 
apartment, stood a man with his back toward us. 
My eyes were fastened on the figure of the crouch- 
ing girl. The convulsive movements of her lithe 
waist showed that she was sobbing. A scuffle of 
feet drew my eyes toward the man. He had 
turned about and was facing the girl. Involun- 
tarily a shocked exclamation broke, in one breath, 
from my cousin and myself. The man was a 
Chinaman. 

Alarmed by our sudden ejaculations, he wheeled 
toward us, a look of terror sweeping over his face. 
Then Tom uttered a furious cry, and, springing 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT . 


149 


past me, hastily ran his hand along the side of the 
building, until he reached the door. I followed. 
There was a sudden lunge, the door opened with a 
bang, a flood of light burst through. I saw Tom 
grapple with the Chinaman and hurl him to the 
floor, and with the crash of his fall was mingled 
a piercing scream. 

Springing forward to lend assistance, I suddenly 
found the clinging arms of the girl wound about 
my neck, her white face close to mine?* One glance 
into her pleading, terrified eyes told me that we 
had made a mistake. The next minute a woman 
ran from the darkness of the adjoining room, and, 
springing defiantly toward Tom, without a word of 
warning, thrust a pistol toward his head and fired. 
The report filled the room, and in the cloud of 
smoke my cousin bounded from the prostrate man 
toward the woman. I saw him make a sudden 
clutch, heard the pistol crash against the wall, as he 
flung it across the room; then his iron hand seized 
my arm, and as he jerked me through the door 
he growled hoarsely: 

“Let’s get out of this!” 


150 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Without looking back, we made our way, as rap- 
idly as possible, to where we had left our horses. 
In a moment we were in our saddles and pressing 
through the black jungle. Not until we were free 
from the gloomy wood, and once more on the open 
plain did either speak. Then Tom broke out with 
his usual vigor: 

“Gosh, Fritz! That’s once we got in the wrong 
pew!” 

“For Heaven’s sake, Tom, what kind of a nest 
did we light on?” I cried in bewilderment. 

“A snake’s nest, with a bird in it,” replied my 
cousin grimly. “I know the whole story now, and 
the best thing we can do will be to ride to Tehama 
and tell the officers.” 

“Tell them what?” 

“That girl has been kidnapped by her mother 
and the Chinaman.” 

“Kidnapped?” 

“Yes. Expect the pigtail carried her off, and 
that’s why she gave us so much chin-music.” 

“Do you know her?” 

“Yes. Her name’s Brooks — Lillie, I think — 
she’s been living at Kirk’s for a year or so.” 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


151 


“Where's her home?" 

“On the river below Tehama, or used to he. 
Her father killed a fellow a few years ago, and 
skinned out." 

“And that's, her mother? — the woman who 
wanted your scalp?" 

“That's the mother. She and the girl lived at 
their old place for a couple of years, then the old 
lady cut loose from every friend she had — ran away 
from her own child — and went to living with a 
damned, yellow Chinaman." 

“Great Heavens! A Chinaman?" 

“That very cuss we saw tonight. Say, do you 
know I gave him a mighty good grip along the 
Adam's apple before that crazy woman turned loose 
with her shooting-iron!" 

“I don't doubt it." 

“Wish I had a chance to finish the job. What, 
the devil did they want to gobble up the girl for? 
Say, didn't she collar you?" 

“Yes." 

“I wonder — she must have thought you might 
hurt the old woman, for she surely wouldn't — " 


152 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


“You say the father killed a man and ran away?” 
I interrupted. 

“Yes. Shot a fellow over some land trouble.” 

“Couldn’t the officers find him?” 

“Suppose not. They didn’t anyway.” 

“Do you know anything about the woman be- 
fore this?” 

“No.” 

“Bespectable?” 

“Guess she was. I know every one was mightily 
horrified when she lit out with the Mongolian.” 

“Who was the Chinaman?” 

“Who ? Well, say, do you take me for a Chinese 
directory? He was a gardener, or peddler, or some 
such vermin.” 

“And you think a respectable wife and mother 
would leave her child for such a life?” 

“Don’t think anything — she did it, didn’t she?” 

“And this girl was left out in the cold?’ 

“Would have been if her friends hadn’t taken 
her in.’ 

“Well, you’re a greater fool than I thought you 
were.” 

My cousin stared at me in silence. 


ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 


153 


“Bespectable women don’t turn aside so easy as 
that.” 

“Huh?” 

“When that woman showed fight tonight, it was 
not for the sake of a Chinaman.” 

“It wasn’t?” 

“Ho.” 

“For whom?” 

“For her husband, and the girl fastened on to 
me to save her father.” 

“How’s that?” 

I repeated what I had said. Tom rode in silence 
for twenty yards, then broke out increduously: 

“Hold on here! What’s the explanation of all 
this wailing we’ve heard?” 

“The girl thought she was being carried off by a 
full-blooded Chinaman.” 

“If he was her father, why the devil didn’t he 
tell her so, and save all the uproar?” 

“Probably he had planned to carry out the de- 
ception to the very last, so that if he failed she 
would have a doleful story to tell, and if she got 
away it would be still more so. This man, Brooks, 
is no fool, nor his wife, either.” 


154 ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT. 

A dozen solutions might have been found to ac- 
count for some of the minor details, but of the 
main facts I was sure that I had discovered the true 
solution. For several miles we discussed the mat- 
ter, though I very soon saw that Tom was of my 
opinion regarding it, in spite of his reluctance to 
admit it. 

At last, when through the sickly moonlight we 
caught sight of the solitary cabin looming before 
us on the sultry plain, my cousin slapped me on the 
shoulder, and cried with energy: 

“Damme, Fritz, you’ve outgrown your class. 
The minute we reach headquarters, I’m going to 
recommend you for honorable promotion from the 
school of Tenderfoots.” 





























































































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